Metaphors used in Television Debates on the EU

Referendum: A Corpus-Based Approach to Conceptual

Metaphor Theory

DIPLOMARBEIT

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie

eingereicht bei

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Gabriella Mazzon

Institut für Anglistik

Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät

der Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck

von

Carina Rützler

01315809

Dorf 1g, 6210 Wiesing

Innsbruck, Dezember 2017

Danksagung

Weder diese Diplomarbeit noch mein gesamtes Studium wären ohne die Hilfe

meiner Eltern, Edith und Gebhard, möglich gewesen. Deshalb möchte ich mich zu

allererst für ihre unaufhörliche Unterstützung, sowohl in finanzieller als auch in

jeder anderen Hinsicht, bedanken!

Des Weiteren richtet sich mein Dank an alle Freunde und Kollegen, die ihre

Erfahrungen, ihre Mitschriften und Materialien mit mir geteilt haben. Allen voran

hat meine Freundin Carolin mir von der ersten Woche des Studiums an geholfen,

wofür ich ihr sehr dankbar bin!

Zu guter Letzt gebührt Frau Professor Gabriella Mazzon, die mein Interesse an

Linguistik geweckt und meine Diplomarbeit betreut hat, besonderer Dank. Ihre

Ratschläge in der Anfangsphase des Schreibens und ihr konstruktives Feedback

zu meinem ersten Entwurf waren von unschätzbarem Wert.

Abstract

Title of Thesis: Metaphors used in Television Debates on the EU

Referendum: A Corpus-Based Approach to

Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Thesis Directed by: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Gabriella Mazzon

Department of English

University of Innsbruck

This thesis is based on conceptual metaphor theory as first introduced by Lakoff

and Johnson (1980), which considers metaphor to play an essential role in

language and human cognition. After offering an overview of the framework of

the theory in the first part of the thesis, a study on the metaphors used in the UK

referendum on the EU membership on 23 June 2016 is conducted. For this

purpose, nine television debates broadcasted before the final election were

transcribed and systematically searched. The findings and implications of this

study are discussed in the second part of the thesis.

The didactic part of the thesis explores the uses of conceptual metaphor for the

second language classroom. In order to put the theory into practice, useful

teaching materials are offered. An exemplary lesson plan that can help students

develop their metaphorical competence is presented. In addition, the possibility of

using conceptual metaphor as an organizing tool to expand vocabulary is

explored. Some exercises that can be integrated continuously into second

language teaching are included.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 1

2. Conceptual Metaphor Theory ................................................................... 3

2.1. Traditional View of Metaphor .................................................................... 3

2.2. Conceptual Metaphor Theory ..................................................................... 6

2.3. Mappings ................................................................................................... 12

2.4. Neural Theory of Language ...................................................................... 16

2.5. Kinds of Metaphor .................................................................................... 20

2.6. Metonymy ................................................................................................. 22

2.7. Identification of Linguistic and Conceptual Metaphor ............................. 23

3. Metaphors Used in Television Debates on the Brexit ........................... 30

3.1. Methodology ............................................................................................. 30

3.2. Remain and Leave Campaign: Project Fears vs. Gambling ...................... 42

3.3. Dysfunctional Family Ties with the European Union............................... 48

3.4. Immigration ............................................................................................... 50

3.5. The European Union as a Container ......................................................... 55

3.6.Taking back Control ................................................................................... 60

3.7. The European Union as a Destructive Force............................................. 67

3.8. Metonymies ............................................................................................... 72

4. Metaphors Used in Second Language Learning ................................... 74

4.1. Metaphorical Competence ........................................................................ 74

4.1.1. Lesson Plan .......................................................................................... 76

4.1.2. Differentiating between Literal and Metaphorical Use ....................... 81

4.1.3. Newspaper Articles .............................................................................. 82

4.1.4. Graphical Organizer ............................................................................ 83

4.1.5. Possible Solution .................................................................................. 84

4.2. Organizing Lexis ....................................................................................... 85

4.2.1. Idioms ................................................................................................... 88

4.2.2. Phrasal Verbs ....................................................................................... 95

4.2.3. Evaluation Sheet................................................................................... 97

5. Conclusion ................................................................................................. 98

Bibliography ....................................................................................................... 100

Primary Sources ................................................................................................ 101

Secondary Sources ............................................................................................ 102

Eidesstattliche Erklärung .................................................................................. 119

.

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1. Introduction

Ever since the publication of their seminal study Metaphors we Live By in 1980,

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have revolutionised the study of metaphor. By

challenging centuries-old Western assumptions about human cognition and

language, the authors have proven that metaphor is not a rare poetic

embellishment, but rather a basic cognitive tool to understand the world around

us. In the past four decades, evidence from different fields of research with

different methodologies has confirmed the view that metaphor plays an essential

role in abstract thought and symbolic expression. The metaphorical language that

we use effortlessly and frequently in our everyday discourse is merely a linguistic

manifestations of conceptual metaphors shaping the human mind. Metaphor,

therefore, not only impacts our language use, but many cultural institutions such

as politics, science, art and sports. This is the reason why conceptual metaphor

theory has found such a wide range of application from literary analysis, to

psychology, mathematics, cognitive linguistics, and, most prominently, law,

politics and social issues. George Lakoff played a pioneering role in employing

metaphor theory in order to uncover the means by which the Bush administration

justified the Gulf war (1991), analyse the differences between the Conservative

and the Progressive party in American politics (1996, 2002) and, in his most

recent work, to explain the logic behind the election of US president Donald

Trump.

The following Diploma thesis applies conceptual metaphor theory to the

political discourse in the lead-up to the so-called Brexit referendum on 23 June

2016, which resulted in the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European

Union. Firstly, the research on and the evidence for conceptual metaphor theory,

as well as the way metaphors function will be discussed. In order to illustrate the

theory, examples from the television programme “BBC EU Brexit Referendum:

The Great Debate”, which aired on the 21 June 2016 from eight to ten p.m., will

be included. Since the debate was broadcasted on the night before the vote, it is

assumed that many of the metaphors used in the preceding campaign were

collected and employed in this final appeal to voters. Therefore, it is accepted as a

suitable starting point for further analysis. In addition, an appropriate method for

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identifying metaphorically used words in real discourse and identifying the

underlying conceptual metaphors is introduced.

For the second part of the thesis, a corpus of transcripts from nine

television debates on the EU referendum was compiled. All of them where

broadcasted by leading television channels in the month of June preceding the

election. The “BBC Great Debate” also served as a pilot study for the second part

of the thesis. Five relevant target domains were identified in this initial analysis

and later searched in the entire corpus: LEAVE and REMAIN CAMPAIGN, THE

EUROPEAN UNION, IMMIGRATION and CONTROL. Consequently, the results of the

study and possible implications of the metaphors used are discussed. The

metaphorical expressions belonging to these target domains are viewed as

indicative of a larger principle that structures our understanding of the political

argument in question.

Last but not least, research in the past decades suggests that conceptual

metaphor can contribute in important ways to second language learning. Since

metaphor plays such a fundamental role in human thought, the scope of possible

uses for the language classroom is extremely wide. In this thesis, the focus is set

on metaphorical competence and conceptual metaphor as an organizing principle

for vocabulary learning. Although no precise definition has been agreed on so far,

metaphorical competence broadly refers to a language user’s ability to recognize,

interpret and actively produce metaphors. In order to develop this competence, a

detailed lesson plan is included in the thesis. Secondly, two exercises that make

use of metaphor as an organizing tool are presented.

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2. Conceptual Metaphor Theory

2.1. Traditional View of Metaphor

Traditionally, metaphor was regarded as a mere linguistic trope used to embellish

poetic texts and achieve the greatest possible effect on the reader. These

assumptions can already be found in Aristotle: “The greatest thing by far is to

have command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the

mark of genius” (Poetics, III, 12). Such a view explains why metaphor analysis

formerly centred only on highly poetic instances of language use, such as

Shakespeare’s acclaimed balcony scene where Juliet is compared to the sun

(Romeo and Juliet, 2.2. 2-7):

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.

Be not her maid since she is envious.

The audience of this scene is lead to transfer the elements of radiant beauty and

centrality from one domain, namely the sun, to another, namely Juliet. The

metaphor is further elaborated by including the moon as the second celestial body,

which is assigned human qualities when she compares her own beauty to the sun.

Romeo’s metaphor, however, involves a relatively high degree of cognitive

involvement from the audience since it is more elaborate than everyday speech.

The exclusive focus on such instances of metaphorical use already

presupposed that everyday conventional language is far removed from metaphor

and only literal. In addition, only literal language can be contingently true or false

since its meaning fits the world directly (Lakoff, 1993: 204). These assumptions

give rise to the distrust some philosophers and empiricists of the Enlightenment

bore towards figurative language in general. Thomas Hobbs, for instance, terms

metaphors “ignes fatui” (Leviathan, pt. 1, chap. 5) and Samuel Parker believes

they “impregnate the mind with nothing but Ayerie and Subventaneous

Phantasmes” (Free and impartial Censure of the Platonick Philosophy).

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In more recent work, Searle (1993) still treats metaphor as a challenge to

communication and a deviation from ordinary literality when he attempts to

paraphrase every instance of metaphor in order to approximate what the speakers

mean. Comprehension of metaphorical expressions, therefore, requires the

interlocutor to reject the initial, literal interpretation that occurs by default. Searle

(1993: 103) suggests an algorithmic strategy that communication partners apply to

process metaphorical language: “Where the utterance is defective if taken literally,

look for an utterance meaning that differs from sentence meaning”. In his view,

metaphors make it possible for speakers who utter a sentence of the form “S is P”

to mean “S is R” (1993: 88). However, a theory of metaphor has to account for the

relationship between P and R that constrains metaphorical usage overall. Searle

offers a list of eight principles according to which P may often be said or believed

to be R (as in, “Richard is a gorilla” for “Richard is mean, nasty and prone to

violence)” or P may be R by definition (as in, “Sam is a giant” for “Sam is big”)

and the like. Searle admits, however, that this list is not conclusive and that he can

only offer “several [such principles] for a start” (1993: 104). As this “algorithmic

process” (Lakoff, 1993: 205) seems to require much more effort than literal

language, it is not at all clear why we resort to metaphor so frequently in our day

to day discourse. Although Searle (1993: 88) is aware that metaphors “satisfy

some semantic need” and the literal paraphrases are somehow inadequate or

impossible to formulate in the first place, he still deems them necessary for

metaphorical understanding. In addition, Searle’s theory predicts that processing

of metaphorical language will take much longer than processing of literal

language, which has turned out not to be the case (Lakoff, 2008: 17).

Overall, the traditional theory of metaphor represented here by means of

reference to some select linguists and philosophers assumes that metaphor is a

purely linguistic and rare poetic phenomenon, which can be replaced with

everyday literal language. The most comprehensive rejection of this view is

Lakoff and Johnson’s study Metaphors we live by (1980). However, some

important contributions were made to conceptual metaphor before its publication,

as Jäkel (1999) convincingly presents. German philosophers and linguists, in

particular, anticipated some of the most important claims that conceptual

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metaphor theory has become famous for. Richards (1936), too, already contested

the view that metaphors can only be invented by poets endowed with special

genius to find similarities and are therefore truly exceptional. Instead, he deems

metaphor to be pervasive in everyday discourse so that “we cannot get through

three sentences of ordinary fluid discourse without it” (Richards, 1936: 92).

Metaphor, according to Richard, creates new meaning through the interaction of

two constituents. Black (1962: 46) termed these constituents tenor and vehicle. In

a given metaphorical utterance, such as “Man is a wolf”, the speaker uses their

knowledge about the tenor, “wolf” and then selects the appropriate information

and projects it onto the vehicle, “man”. Thus, the speaker can derive at the

conclusion that the wolfish attributes “malicious” and “aggressive” apply to

humans, while inacceptable aspects like “having four legs”, “animal” and “living

in packs” are ruled out. This view became known as the interaction view of

metaphor (Black, 1955: 285), according to which metaphor is also a mechanism

which significantly determines human thought overall. Black (1977: 454) regards

metaphors as “cognitive instruments”. Therefore, the interaction view of metaphor

foresees some essential aspects of conceptual metaphor theory, although Lakoff

and Turner (1989: 131-133) are hesitant to admit this. The terminology of

Richards is particularly fitting in respect of the etymology of the word metaphor.

It derives from the Greek suffix μετα- and the verb φέρω which literally means

“to transfer” or “to carry beyond” (Luke, 2004), hence the suitability of the term

“vehicle”. Metaphor, thus, allows for a transfer of a word outside its usual

context and an understanding of one concept in terms of another. This definition

has remained the same since antiquity. All in all, it cannot be denied that at least

the ubiquity and unidirectionality of metaphors, two important tenets of

conceptual metaphor theory, were already noted by important predecessors (Jäkel

1997: 9).

However, Lakoff and Johnson’s study (1980) has secured thought as the

locus of metaphor, creating a new cognitive linguistic theory of metaphor, and has

undeniably had the largest impact on the growing body of research. Their theory

has found application in various fields of scholarship, science and, last but not

least, in foreign language teaching, which will be discussed in the last section of

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this thesis. The conceptual theory of metaphor will be explained in some detail in

the following chapter.

2.2. Conceptual Metaphor Theory

As was shown in the previous chapter, some researchers anticipated the ideas that

constitute conceptual metaphor theory. George Lakoff (1993: 203-4) himself,

however, attributes the idea that metaphor should be part of everyday human

thought to Michael J. Reddy’s essay The Conduit Metaphor, which first appeared

in the first edition of Metaphor and Thought (Reddy, 1979: 284-310). This

collection is particularly interesting in regard to the change metaphor theory has

undergone since 1980 as the single essays contradict each other in how they view

metaphor. Reddy argues that human language is understood to function like a

conduit that transfers thoughts from one individual to another. Words are

conceptualized as containers that speakers and writers of a language fill with

meaning, which is extracted by listeners or readers after the transferring process.

This understanding of communication is realized in metaphorical expressions,

such as “getting one’s thoughts across”, “feelings coming through to someone” or

“giving someone an idea of what you mean” (Reddy, 1979: 286). Reddy estimates

that the conduit metaphor accounts for at least 70% of the expressions we use in

our language about language. The analysis of this single example where an

abstract concept, namely language, is understood in terms of more concrete

concepts, namely as containers and a conduit led to the discovery of an enormous

system of conceptual metaphors by Lakoff and Johnson (1980).

Lakoff and Johnson’s cognitive linguistic view of metaphor differs from

the traditional perspective, firstly, in that metaphor is seen as integral part of

conventional thought and language. As can be derived from the common-place

examples given by Reddy (1979), metaphor is not just constrained to poetic

language. Instead, metaphor is utilized without conscious effort to talk about

everyday concepts such as time, life, death, or, as mentioned above, about

language. In addition, we are only able to comprehend and appreciate elaborate

forms of metaphor of the Shakespearean kind on the basis of these omnipresent

metaphors each and every one of us uses. In More than Cool Reason Lakoff and

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Turner (1989) trace an abundance of poetic metaphors back to these commonplace

metaphors that are integral part of human thought and understanding.

In an early study (Pollio, Barlow, Fine & Pollio, 1977), transcripts of

psychotherapeutic interviews, various essays, and the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon

presidential debates were analysed and searched for metaphors. Novel metaphors,

which are created by speakers spontaneously, were distinguished from frozen

ones. The latter kind is hardly perceived as non-literal language use due to their

high level of conventionality. The study counted 1.80 novel and 4.08 frozen

metaphors per minute of discourse. Such numbers clearly indicate that

metaphorical expressions figure prominently in everyday language use. Moreover,

conceptual metaphor theory has found a metaphorical motivation behind

everyday, conventional expressions and, thus, once and for all determined that

literality is a fuzzy-edged category. There is no simple way to draw a boundary

between literal and figurative language. None of the principles proposed in the

classical approach, such as truth conditionality or compositionality, have proven

to be adequate indicators of literality (Handl, 2011: 16-19).

Secondly and perhaps more importantly, metaphor is no longer regarded

“as a figure of speech, but a mode of thought” (Lakoff, 1993: 210). Hence, it is

called conceptual metaphor. It accounts for a multitude of single metaphorical

expressions through one general cognitive principle. The systematicity that Lakoff

and Johnson were able to detect behind all these expressions is one of the most

pervasive arguments for conceptual metaphor theory. Eve Sweetser (1990)

pointed out that conceptual metaphor lies at the heart of historical semantic

change, polysemy and pragmatic ambiguity. By factoring our perceptual system

and the way we conceptualize our experience into semantic theory, she was able

to demonstrate that different senses of one and the same morpheme are related.

Change in meaning is therefore “natural and readily motivated” (Sweetser, 1990:

1-2). Thus, phrases like “Your claims are indefensible”, “He attacked every weak

point in my argument” and “He demolished her argument” etc. acquire an

additional, non-literal sense since they are all linguistic realizations of the

conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR (Lakoff & Johson, 1980: 4). Unlike

theories of abstraction and homonymy which fail to explain the systematic

8

relationship between two senses of the same word, the metaphorical motivation

observed in these examples can account for changes in meaning (Lakoff &

Johnson, 1980:106-7).

Another example is the preposition “over”, which has more than 100

senses (Brugman & Lakoff, 1988). In addition to the senses that refer to specific

physical schemata (e.g. “The bird flew over the house”), all of the senses that

cover figurative schemas are motivated by two conceptual metaphors. The first

one, CONTROL IS UP, is frequently used in the arguments of the Leave side. Like

all the examples given in this first part of the thesis, Andrea Leadsom’s statement

is taken from the transcript of the television programme “BBC EU Brexit

Referendum: The Great Debate”. Metaphorically used words or phrases in these

quotes are indicated in italics.

(1) “We can take back control over our laws. We can take back control

over our taxes. We can take back control over our borders,

immigration policy and security.” (Andrea Leadsom, 00:04:04-

00:04:17)

These instances of use in Andrea Leadsom’s opening statement exhibit the

metaphorical projection of knowledge from the physical domain to the more

abstract, non-physical domain (Gibbs, 1994: 157). The second conceptual

metaphor, CHOOSING IS TOUCHING, is manifested in Boris Johnson’s affirmation

that Britain will be able to keep its economy stable without the European Union

through new trade deals:

(2) “Let me give you an example: Because of the EU system, our entire

trade negotiating policy is handed over to the EU Commission, where

only 3.6 % of the officials actually come from our country”. (Boris

Johnson, 00:32:36-00:32:57)

This metaphorical use of “over” entails that there is no physical contact with the

object that Britain would like to control as long as they remain a member of the

9

European Union, namely their trade deals. Both conceptual metaphors explain

why we can extend the meaning of a preposition to cover such a tremendous

variety of senses.

The cognitive linguistic view of metaphor holds that language is an

indication of more general cognitive principles. Through an analysis of linguistic

expressions, we can arrive at a deeper understanding of how humans create

meaning and understand the world. “The essence of metaphor is understanding

and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another”, Lakoff and Johnson

(1980: 5, emphasis added) summarize their understanding of conceptual

metaphor. Reddy’s appendix can also be seen as an example of the form in which

conceptual metaphors were standardized by Lakoff and Johnson (1980): TARGET

DOMAIN IS SOURCE DOMAIN or, alternatively, TARGET DOMAIN AS SOURCE

DOMAIN. As Kövecses (2010: 7) emphasizes, it is important to distinguish

between the linguistic manifestation, i.e. ways of speaking, i.e. metaphorical

expressions, and the organizational principles that they are based on, i.e.

conceptual metaphors. In this thesis, conceptual metaphors, accordingly, will be

spelled in small capitals while linguistic expressions will be written in quotation

marks.

The terms that are used in order to label the domains can sometimes be

viewed as arbitrary or dependent on the context of the specific linguistic

expressions that represent the metaphor. The metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR, for

instance, was sometimes been criticized as too harsh since ”war” heavily

emphasizes the physical harm inflicted in a violent conflict. For this reason, some

scholars find it more appropriate to label the metaphor ARGUMENT IS COMBAT.

Similarly, Turner (1991) attempted to capture the meaning of the metaphor with

his label RATIONAL ARGUMENT IS COMBAT BETWEEN INTENTIONAL AGENTS.

Clausner and Croft (1997) remarked that this wording does not take irrational

forms of debate into account, which, nevertheless, occur in our daily lives.

Considering this discussion, it is important to note that the domain label chosen

represents “an abstraction from specific instances of experience” (Dancygier &

Sweetser 2014: 23). Thus, it is neither necessary nor possible to pinpoint the most

precise lexical items to describe the source and target domains. As is the case for

10

categories, domains have no clear-cut boundaries. Instead, they are fuzzy, with a

prototype at their core and a periphery further outside (Rosch 1977, Lakoff 1987).

Moreover, some scholars have replaced the term “domain” with “frame”, as first

introduced by Fillmore (1982). This exchange offers the advantage that evoking

one aspect of the frame through the use of one expression also accesses the entire

frame structure. As many types of physical combat and the actions typically

associated with them are part of the same conceptual frame, the distinction

between the labels “war” and “combat”, thus, loses much of its importance.

As a basic tool of human cognition, metaphor allows us to use our most

basic physical and social experience in order to comprehend other, more complex

subjects. “Metaphors allow us to understand a relatively abstract or inherently

unstructured subject matter in terms of a more concrete, or at least more highly

structured subject matter”, as Lakoff states (1993: 145). Therefore we find that the

most common source domains include the human body and its condition (health

and illness), animals, plants, buildings and constructions, warmth and cold, light

and darkness etc. These basic concepts of our understanding are the building

blocks of how we metaphorically make sense of experiences such as emotions,

psychological states and events in general, social groups, personal development

and events (Kövecses, 2010: 27). We can see this general direction of conceptual

metaphor to conceptualize something abstract via something more concrete in the

MP’s, Sarah Wollaston’s, claim:

(3) “I've listened to the evidence. It's clear that our NHS, health research

will be hit if we leave. There will be less money for those services and

it [Brexit] will hit the workforce. It will hit our leadership role in

research and development and cooperation with our European partners.

There will be a very serious Brexit penalty for the NHS. Make no

mistake”. (Sarah Wollaston, 37:29-17:37)

Sarah Wollaston conceptualizes the impact that the Brexit would have on the

economy in terms of a physical force and, consequently, repeatedly uses the word

“hit” to express her ideas. Justin King, former Sainsbury’s Chief Executive,

11

likewise, uses the words “damage”, “hurt” and “harm” in order to represent the

effect of the predicted economic recession on British society as a physical force

(00:36:41-00:37:07). Since our experience with physical forces is delineated in a

much clearer way, we metaphorically understand the more abstract factors

influencing the economy in these terms.

Another important difference from a traditional perspective of metaphor

derives from the question how metaphor production is constrained. After all, no

theory of metaphor can argue that any target domain can aptly be talked about in

terms of any source domain. In the traditional view of metaphor, the possibility

whether we can speak about something in metaphorical terms is constrained by

the similarity between two concepts. If there is no apparent similarity we cannot

form a corresponding metaphorical expression. It is important to note that these

similarities are thought of as inherent properties of the entities in question. While

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) agree with this proposal in so far as the real world

entities constrain our conceptual system, they challenge comparison theory,

arguing that these similarities are not objective, but experiential. In addition to the

entities in the real world, our experience of them determines which properties and

similarities we perceive in them. For this reason, they focus their attention not on

inherent properties but on “correlations” within our experience and “perceived

structural similarity” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 154-155).

We can find such a correlation in Boris Johnson’s statement in response

to the question how the United Kingdom’s economy would be affected if it were

to leave the European Union: “It would be a fine thing if, as Lord Rose said,

people on low incomes got a pay rise as a result of us taking back control of our

country and our system” (00:19:54-00:20:01). Here, Boris Johnson makes use of

the conceptual metaphor MORE IS UP and its counterpart LESS IS DOWN since he

predicts that the currently “low” wages will be “higher” as a result of the country

leaving the European Union. The metaphors are grounded in the co-occurrence of

adding more of a substance to a container and the level of the substance rising, but

this does not mean that there is a similarity between the two domains. In other

words, there is a correlation in our everyday experience of quantity and verticality

(Kövecses, 2010: 80).

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We can find a perceived structural similarity, on the other hand, between life and

gambling in the following utterances:

(4) “Even those who want us to leave admit it’s a big gamble”. (Sadiq

Khan, 00:05:47-00:05:49)

(5) “We cannot afford this gamble with our jobs, our wages, our

livelihoods and our rights”. (Frances O’Grady, 00:14:36 – 00:14:47)

(6) “That’s a big hit and we cannot afford it. Don’t take the risk”. (Frances

O’Grady, 00:16:53-00:17:01)

As Lakoff and Johnson argue, there is no experiential correspondence whatsoever

between human life and gambling games (1980: 155). We simply experience one

conceptual domain, i.e. life, as resembling another one, i.e. a gambling game. The

more or less positive choices we make in life are seen as equivalents of winning

and losing. The perceived similarity leads to the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A

GAMBLING GAME, which is in turn realized linguistically in the statements by the

politicians on the Remain side.

2.3. Mappings

In order to explain how conceptual metaphors work exactly, Lakoff and Johnson

(1980: 246) introduce the term mappings. Mappings are the conceptual

correspondences that allow us to talk about a concept from a domain A in terms of

a concept from a domain B. Knowing a metaphor means knowing the systematic

mappings between the source and the target although this knowledge is largely

unconscious. When we take the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY, we can

understand it as a set of metaphorical mappings between elements associated with

journeys and elements associated with life that are seen to correspond to the

former. Accordingly, the individuals in life are conceptualized as travellers, our

goals in life as destinations in the journey and the surface of the road as the degree

of hardship. The direction of these mappings always goes from the more concrete

to the more abstract and is typically not reversible. Unidirectionality is a natural

13

feature of conceptual metaphor since we cannot attempt to comprehend the more

abstract in terms of the more concrete:

Source: JOURNEY Target: LIFE

journey → events in life

travellers → individuals

destinations → achievements in life

different roads → different choices in life

surface of the road → degree of hardship

weather conditions → also: degree of hardship

end of the road → death

These are the metaphorical mappings that allow us to interpret utterances, such as

“Michael Gove says it will mean inevitably bumps in the road” in an appropriate

way (Ruth Davidson, 00:17:58-00:18:01). The unevenness of the road is mapped

onto the target domain and metaphorically understood as referring to the future of

Great Britain. Thus, “bumps in the road” refer to the loss of jobs, lower wages and

economic difficulty in general. The same mappings are at work when we

understand the question “When it comes to economy, which is the best path for

Britain?” (BBC presenter, 00:08:18-00:08:22) and the declaration “The EU has

embarked on a relentless journey to create a European superstate” (David

Dimbleby, 01:12:20-01:12:29). Again, there is no inherent similarity between the

elements in the source and the target domain. Rather, the source domain, i.e.

JOURNEY, played a vital role in structuring the concept of LIFE we have by

extracting these elements listed above. This explains why we find it difficult to

think or speak of the abstract target concept without using any references to the

source concept (Kövecses, 2010: 9).

The nature of metaphorical mappings also implies that the standard

formula TARGET DOMAIN IS SOURCE DOMAIN is a simplification: Not all of the

aspects of the source domain are or can be mapped onto the target domain since

the two are never identical. This selective mapping inevitably results in

highlighting and hiding certain aspects of the target domain. As can be gleamed

14

from the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor, life is often regarded as a purposeful

activity that leads the traveller to a definitive goal through their dedication and

hard work. At the same time, this very metaphor hides the external influences that

can impact us regardless of our decisions and best efforts. Moreover, different

metaphors can highlight other aspects of the life domain, such as feelings of

meaninglessness and futility in Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Life is a tale, told by an

idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (5.5.27). An argument can be

understood metaphorically as a journey, a container, a building, or war, all of

which lead to different perceptions concerning the function and rules of

arguments (Kövecses, 2010: 135). The conduit metaphor, which we use extremely

frequently to talk about communication as established above, entails that words

and utterances have meaning of their own, independent of the speakers and the

context. Neither the Remain nor the Leave side in the Brexit campaign want to

lose control over Great Britain’s economic stability and its position in the global

market. But while the Leave side’s slogan “Take back control” connotes Britain’s

ability to make independent political decision on a national level in the future, the

Remain side also warn of the loss of control that this very step brings in its train.

As Sadiq Khan asks:

(7) “How is it having more control if you have less money in your pocket

as Martin Lewis, the money expert, says? How is it more control if we

have a recession as the Bank of England says. How is it more control if

we are not investing in the schools and hospitals and GP practices, if

Karim [member of the audience] can't get a job because local

employers are suffering, or how is it control if it is double the

immigration, […] more control if there are businesses from China,

India and America choosing Germany and France over London. How

is it more control if young people don't have the opportunities that we

have? “ (Sadiq Khan, 00:59:35 – 01:00:17)

This exemplifies that loss of control is caused by completely different outcomes

of the Brexit election depending on which speakers use it in which context. The

15

conduit metaphor, however, hides this important feature of language. As Lakoff

and Johnson (1980: 12) point out, metaphorical concepts “provide us with a

partial understanding of what communication, argument, and time and, in doing

this, they hide other aspects of these concepts”. For this reason, it is possible to

have a number of source domains for the same target, which are selected

according to their appropriateness in a given context.

In addition, the partial nature of metaphorical mappings also confronts us

with a tricky problem. How are illegitimate mappings from the source to the target

domain ruled out? One possibility which journeys offer, for instance, is going

back and revisiting places we have travelled to at an earlier point in time via the

same route. In life, however, it is simply not possible to return to the events once

they have passed. This is one element that cannot be mapped from the source

domain onto the domain of life. Another example frequently discussed in the

literature, involves the CAUSATION IS TRANSFER metaphor (e.g. Kövecses 2010:

131). This conceptual metaphor is manifested linguistically in expressions such as

“She gave him a headache”, where the headache is treated like a physical object.

As a result, “She gave him a headache and he still has it” is a legitimate utterance

in English. By contrast, this principle does not hold true for sentences where a kiss

is conceptualized as a physical object: * ”She gave him a kiss and he still has it”.

In order to solve this dilemma Lakoff (1993) first established the Invariance

Principle which reads:

“Metaphorical mappings preserve the cognitive typology (that is the

image-schema structure) of the source domain, in a way that is consistent

with the inherent structure of the target domain”. (Lakoff, 1993: 215)

The nature of the target domain, then, overrides the initial assumptions that the

metaphor leads us to make, namely that you still have an object after it has been

given to you. In the first example, the state of the headache is compatible with the

object transfer metaphor, whereas in the second example, the event of a kiss

cannot endure and, therefore, chancels all the mappings that suggest a permanent

possession after the action has been carried out.

16

Lakoff and Johnson (2003: 254) later called this principle of target domain

overrides “unfortunate” and abandoned it in favour of a neural theory of language.

According to this theory, metaphorical mappings are physically realized in the

human brain through neural maps. The research that led to this viewpoint and the

implications it has for metaphor theory overall will be discussed in the next

section of the thesis.

2.4. Neural Theory of Language

In his 1997 dissertation, Joseph Grady introduced primary metaphors to the field.

Focusing on less elaborate metaphors, he discovered that in the course of so-

called primary scenes we learn early and far-reaching correlations in our day to

day experience from the age of babyhood. A prime example of such a correlation

is the physical warmth a baby experiences when it is being held by its mother,

resulting in the conceptual metaphor AFFECTION IS WARMTH. Another basic

example is the CONTROL IS UP metaphor, which emerges from the child’s early

experience of being less powerful than its caregivers due to their increased height

in relation to the child’s. In this way, primary metaphors connect our sensory-

motor experience with our subjective judgement or assessment.

Christopher Johnson (1999) similarly observed that children below the age

of three seem to use the word “see” in its literal sense exclusively, that is in

reference to vision, before they start to form metaphorical utterances, such as “I

see what you mean”, where knowing is conceptualized as seeing (KNOWING IS

SEEING metaphor). Johnson remarks that children are unlikely to distinguish

between the domains of SEEING and KNOWING. As a result, conflation of the two

domains presumably occurs at an early stage of a child’s development. By default,

these correlations in experience are frequently repeated from a very early age and,

thus, given special importance in the neural theory of language: primary metaphor

and what Johnson has termed conflation make the Invariance principle obsolete

since metaphors are learned when an experience from the target domain co-occurs

with an experience from the source domain. If there were a contradiction, then the

metaphor would never be learned in the first place (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003:

258).

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Since all human beings are considered to share these primal experiences to

some extent and, thus, activate the same set of domains repeatedly, it makes sense

to consider some metaphors as universal. Through our natural, everyday

experience in the world, these kinds of metaphors will be learned by anyone

automatically. In fact, no language has been found so far, that negates the MORE IS

UP metaphor. It seems that we simply do not conceptualize any form of increase

with a downward motion, which is explained trough the primary scene of pouring

a liquid into a container resulting in an increased level of the liquid. Yu (1998,

2009) demonstrates that conceptual metaphors for emotions in Chinese, such as

HAPPY IS UP and SAD IS DOWN, seem to be the same as in English. Another

instance of metaphorical usage that is relatively consistent across languages seems

to be the distinction of LIGHT and DARK. On the other hand, it is clear that many

metaphors, particularly those that structure the target concept in a more detailed

way than MORE IS UP, can vary from culture to culture.

Simultaneously, Srinivas Narayanan (1997) used computational techniques

to represent metaphors as neuronal mappings. He then selected certain

metaphorical statements from economic discourse such as “France fell into a

recession and Germany pulled it out”. The inferences that come from the source

domain of physical action (i.e. falling into a ditch and pulling someone out) were

mapped onto the target domain of international economics. Both the enacted

inferences that arise from the source domain about physical action and the

structural inferences about international economics interact with the target domain

and contribute to how it is understood.

The neural theory of language argues that these conflations or

correspondent experiences have a physical realization in the brain. During the

primary scene discussed above when the mother holds her baby, two neuronal

groups, such as the one responsible for the perception of temperature and the one

for emotional concepts, fire together. Consequently, activation spreads along the

synapses that connect them. When the two neural groups repeatedly fire at the

same time and the activation reaches from one to the other, neural mapping

circuits may be formed (Lakoff, 2008: 19). These are viewed as the neural basis

18

for metaphors that account for our conceptualization of AFFECTION AS PHYSICAL

WARMTH.

These primary metaphors are a normal result of associative learning in the

brain. The Hebbian principle “Neurons that fire together wire together” (Hebb,

1949) predicts that repeated correlation in experience where two domains in the

brain are co-active will lead to a connection of these areas. Since all primary

metaphors arise from our physical experience, they are embodied. The

combination of primary metaphors, in turn, provides the basis for complex

metaphors. When more than one neural metaphor connection is active at the same

time, they allow for us to understand much more abstract concepts. This is the

mechanism used “for conceptualizing and discussing the full range of cultural and

abstract concepts needed in human society” (Feldman, 2006: 203).

Lera Boroditsky (2000) experimentally investigated whether we structure

abstract domains in terms of metaphorical mappings from target domains that are

ground in physical experience by reference to the event structure metaphor. In this

case, the more concrete domain of SPACE gives structure to the more abstract

domain of TIME. In English there are two spatial schemas according to which we

conceptualize time. The first schema is ego-centric and visualizes the speaker as

moving through time, as in “We are coming up on Christmas”. Other temporal

statements, such as “Christmas is coming up”, presuppose that the speaker is

stagnant while the events in time are visualized as moving towards the speaker

(Gentner et al., 1999; McGlone & Harding, 1998). In Boroditsky’s experiment,

participants were asked four true or false priming questions in line with the ego-

moving schema or the time-moving schema respectively in a questionnaire. In the

consequent target task they had to disambiguate the statement “Next Wednesday’s

meeting has been moved forward two days” and establish on which day of the

week the meeting would consequently take place. Like Boroditsky had predicted,

those participants who had accessed the ego-moving metaphor in answering the

priming questions were more likely to see themselves as moving forward in time

and decided that the meeting would take place on Friday. Participants who had

accessed the time-moving metaphor in answering the priming questions on the

other hand, were more likely to interpret “forward” as the motion of time and,

19

thus, name Monday as the meeting date. In total, almost 72% of the participants

reacted in a prime-consistent manner. The control group that had not been given

any prime questions was divided roughly equally between Friday and Monday

which shows that neither of the spatial schemas for time is dominant in Western

culture. Boroditsky’s results suggest that TIME and SPACE do, in fact, share a

conceptual structure. Furthermore, the priming effect shown reinforces the

assumption that source and target domain are connected. Cross-linguistic studies

(Boroditsky, 2001) additionally confirm that our mental representations of

abstract concepts are not independent of the linguistic metaphors we use for them.

In another experiment (Boroditsky, 2000), participants were shown to be

influenced by spatial primes when thinking about time, but to be unaffected by

temporal primes when thinking about space. This finding suggests that spatial

schemas are not necessary for us to think about the target domain of time.

Gradually, continuous usage enables us to access the domain of time

independently of spatial schemas. The metaphorical mappings that were set up

between two domains are stored in the target domain when they are activated

frequently enough. Highly conventional metaphors tend to acquire such stored

meaning, that is, they are processed off-line in contrast to novel metaphors

(Boroditsky, 2000: 4).

Further evidence for the brain as locus of metaphor comes from brain

imaging studies. In a recent overview, Benjamin Bergen (2012) gives some proof

that metaphorical language may be processed through embodied simulation, just

like literal language is simulated in the brain. This means that the same parts of

the brain are active when we read about a concrete action as when we actually

perform the action. One study (Wilson & Gibbs, 2007) showed, for instance, that

participants were faster to grasp a metaphorical expression when it matched the

action they had been performing beforehand. In other words, activation in the

matching parts of the motor cortex may facilitate understanding metaphors

precisely because they require embodied simulation. Not all studies replicated

these results, but this may be due to the fact that embodied simulation is less

detailed and requires less activity in the motor cortex of the brain than literal

language (Bergen, 2012: 208).

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All these experiments verify the predictions that the neural theory of

metaphor makes. The physical reality of metaphor is of great relevance to our

everyday thought in all aspects of life:

“You don’t have a choice as to whether to think metaphorically. Because

metaphorical maps are part of our brains, we will think and speak

metaphorically whether we want to or not. Since the mechanism of metaphor

is largely unconscious, we will think and speak metaphorically whether we

know it or not”. (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003: 257)

2.5. Kinds of Metaphor

Conceptual metaphors can vary in the degree to which they structure a given

target. The division into ontological, orientational and structural metaphors was

first introduced in Lakoff and Johnson’s classical work (1980) and although the

authors call it “artificial” in the second edition (2003: 264), it has been kept up in

the literature (e.g. Kövecses 2010, 37). The type that provides the richest

knowledge structure for the target concept is the structural metaphor. One such

instance is the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MOTION. We talk about physical

objects, their motion and location when we want to refer to time. Expressions, like

“the following week”, “time is flying by”, “the time has arrived”, “the time has

gone” etc. are results of the spatialization of time in our conceptual system. Other

examples for structural metaphors have been given above.

The second type, ontological metaphor, allows us to reason about our

experiences in terms of discreet entities, substances and containers. Experiences

that have a very unclear structure or none receive a more sharply delineated status

in this manner. The mind is commonly understood in terms of a brittle object

when we say “her ego is very fragile or “you have to handle him with care since

his wife’s death” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 28). In Kövecses’ words (2010: 39),

“a ‘nonthing’ experience has received the status of a thing through an ontological

metaphor”. The same process can be observed in personification which ascribes

human nature to non-human entities.

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The final type, orientational metaphor, provides the least amount of

cognitive structuring by working with spatial orientations like up-down, front-

back, on-off, centre-periphery and near-far. Our most fundamental concepts tend

to be organized in these terms. In Western culture, the future is most frequently

seen as being ahead of us. Upward orientation tends to be associated with positive

evaluation while downward orientation tends to be associated with negative

evaluation: HAPPINESS, HEALTH and LIFE are UP and HAVING CONTROL or FORCE

is UP while their opposites are conceptualized as DOWN (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:

15).

The artificiality mentioned above arises since these types of metaphor

overlap in important regards: all metaphors are structural in that they structure the

target domain through conceptual mappings, all are ontological in that they create

entities in the target domain and many are orientation in that they map image-

schemas (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003: 264).

Mappings are sometimes organized into hierarchical structures where the

higher mappings inherit the structure of lower mappings. Primary metaphors are

located at the first level in the hierarchy since they are grounded in “basic (…)

metaphorical correspondences” (Grady, 1999: 81). The following is such a

hierarchy of metaphors with three levels adopted from the Master Metaphor List

(Lakoff et al., 1991: 36-38).

Level 1: The event structure metaphor

Level 2: LONG-TERM PURPOSEFUL CHANGE IS A JOURNEY

Level 3: LIFE IS JOURNEY; LOVE IS A JOURNEY; A CAREER IS A JOURNEY

The event structure metaphor on the first level directs mappings from the domain

of SPACE onto the domain of TIME. Thus, states are conceptualized as locations,

change as motion, causes as forces, actions as self-propelled movements, purposes

as destinations etc. These entailments are very general in nature and can be

mapped onto subtypes of events. All kinds of long-term purposeful change

therefore inherit all the mappings from the event structure metaphor. In turn, the

third level metaphors are subtypes of the second level: life, love and careers are all

assumed to have a purpose. As a result, we conceive of our goals as destinations,

22

the time that passes before we achieve these goals as our path and the difficulties

we encounter as impediments to our motion. Ungerer and Schmid (2006: 125-

127) refer to the increasing specificity of the metaphors from the first to the third

level as lean and rich mappings. The metaphors that are higher in the hierarchy

tend to be more widespread. The event structure metaphor is even suspected to be

universal. Lower level metaphors might depend on the cultural background to a

larger extent (Gibbs, 1994: 152-153).

Another distinction refers to the conventionality of the mappings between

the source and target domain. The metaphorical use of “gorilla”, for instance,

seems to be frequent enough for Macmillan’s Advanced Learners’ Dictionary

(Rundell & Fox, 2002) to include it as a separate entry (“a big man who seems

stupid or violent”). This may not be the case for other, less commonly used

metaphorical expressions. As Handl highlights (2011: 30), many linguists put

forward different sets of mappings that might hypothetically be used by speakers.

However, for an understanding of human cognition, knowledge about the actual

conventionality of these mappings is of vital importance. Searle (1979) already

noted that the most conventional metaphors, which are perhaps misleadingly

referred to as “dead”, must play the most central role in our thoughts:

“Dead metaphors are especially interesting for our study, because, to speak

oxymoronically, dead metaphors have lived on. They have become dead

through continual use, but their continual use is a clue that they satisfy some

semantic need”. (Searle, 1979: 83)

2.6. Metonymy

Metonymy has been a peripheral subject of interest in comparison to metaphor.

As Handl (2011: 32) stresses, however, it is a phenomenon well worth studying.

Metonymies “provide understanding” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 36) and affect

“our thought and action” (ibid.: 39). Just like metaphors, they can be seen as a set

of mappings and are systematic in the relations they provide. The difference

between the two phenomena lies in the number of domains involved: In

metonymy, an entity is used to refer to another entity from the same knowledge

domain: “The university needs more clever heads”. Unlike metaphor, there is a

23

within-domain mapping at work. The relationship here is PART FOR THE WHOLE

since one body part (i.e. “head”) stands in for the entire person. The selection of

the body part is not arbitrary and has a clear communicative function. Human

properties commonly associated with the head, such as intelligence, are

emphasized. The same PART FOR THE WHOLE relationship is at work in the

idiomatic expression “All hands on deck”, but it places greater importance on

physical strength than intelligence (Ungerer & Schmidt, 2006).

Barcelona (2003a) notes, that the difference between metaphor and

metonymy lies in where we draw the line between domains and, in this way, can

be a matter of interpretation. An utterance such as “John is a lion” is intuitively

understood as a metaphorical mapping between PEOPLE and ANIMALS. If we are

to form a wider category of LIVING BEINGS or MAMMALS, however, the utterance

could also be understood to be a metonymy (Barcelona, 2003a: 231). As shown in

the example, there are ambiguous cases where the distinction is not as clear as

Lakoff and Johnson (2003: 265) initially claimed. This leaves us with an

understanding of metaphor and metonymy on a continuum with more and less

clear cases of these phenomena (Handl, 2011: 34). While metaphor and

metonymy serve an equally important cognitive function, Handl’s study (2011:

251) indicates that metaphors may have been the centre of attention in cognitive

linguistics because they occur much more frequently.

2.7. Identification of Linguistic and Conceptual Metaphor

In order to conclusively identify metaphorically used words or phrases in real

discourse, some criteria need to be agreed on. As the Pragglejaz Group (2007: 2),

a team of metaphor scholars from various academic disciplines, pointed out,

researchers may often rely on their own intuitions when they decide what counts

as a metaphor and what does not, which makes it difficult to compare the results

of their studies. Words can be used metaphorically regardless of whether their

metaphorical meaning is frequent enough to appear in a dictionary. The decision

if a word is metaphorical is dependent on the context and may vary from analyst

to analyst. After six years of collaboration, the Pragglejaz Group (2007: 13)

therefore presented the metaphor identification procedure (MIP) that allows

24

researchers to pinpoint exactly why they believe a word is used metaphorically in

a specific context. MIP is comprised of the following four steps (2007: 3):

1. Read the entire text–discourse to establish a general understanding

of the meaning.

2. Determine the lexical units in the text–discourse

3. (a) For each lexical unit in the text, establish its meaning in

context, that is, how it applies to an entity, relation, or attribute in

the situation evoked by the text (contextual meaning). Take into

account what comes before and after the lexical unit.

(b) For each lexical unit, determine if it has a more basic

contemporary meaning in other contexts than the one in the given

context. For our purposes, basic meanings tend to be

More concrete; what they evoke is easier to imagine, see, hear,

feel, smell, and taste.

Related to bodily action.

More precise (as opposed to vague)

Historically older.

Basic meanings are not necessarily the most frequent meanings of

the lexical unit.

(c) If the lexical unit has a more basic current–contemporary

meaning in other contexts than the given context, decide whether

the contextual meaning contrasts with the basic meaning but can be

understood in comparison with it.

4. If yes, mark the lexical unit as metaphorical.

Statistical tests indicated that their method of metaphor identification in real

discourse is reliable. The six analysts in the Pragglejaz Group applied the method

to two texts of discourse of about 675 words each, one news text and one

conversation from the British National Corpus. Their judgement as to whether

words were used metaphorically or not only diverged concerning 4% of the words

in the conversation and 7% of the words in the news text. Conversely, 89% and

25

82% of the words in the chosen discourses were unanimously agreed on by six

independently working analysts (Steen, 2007: 13).

By way of illustration, one sentence from the “BBC’s Great Debate” on

the referendum will be analysed according to the metaphor identification

procedure. Ruth Davidson started her final appeal to the voters after she had been

invited to do so by presenter David Dimbleby:

(8) “And you have to be 100% sure because there's no going back on

Friday morning, and your decision could cost someone else their job”.

(Ruth Davidson, 01:40:32-01:40:40)

A first reading of the debate’s entire transcript reveals that presenters David

Dimbleby, Mishal Husain and Emily Maitlis are hosting a debate on whether the

United Kingdom should remain part of the European Union or not. Members of

Parliament, Boris Johnson, Gisela Stuart and Andrea Leadsom support the Vote

Leave campaign, while the Leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist

Party, Ruth Davidson, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Frances O’Grady, General

Secretary of the TUC, represent Remain. In addition to the opening and closing

statements, the key issues discussed were divided into economy, immigration and

Britain’s place in the world. Two questions from members of the audience, one

from a supporter of the Leave campaign and one from a supporter of the Remain

campaign, were addressed to the main speakers, who were nominated by their

designated campaigns respectively. Moreover, opinions and comments were given

from the second stage by ten further guests split evenly between the two parties.

SNP’s Humza Yousaf, Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston, Liberal Democrat

leader Tim Farron, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, and Justin King, former CEO

of Sainsbury’s spoke for Remain. On the other side of the argument, Conservative

Minister Priti Patel, UKIP’s Diane James, Harsimrat Kaur from Women for

Britain, Tim Martin, founder and chairman of Wetherspoons, and journalist and

author Tony Parsons represented Leave. Finally, immediate reactions to the

debate from social media were assessed and facts checked with the help of the

26

BBC’s Reality Check team led by Economics Editor, Kamal Ahmad and Europe

Editor, Katya Adler.

In a second step, the selected example sentence from Ruth Davidson’s closing

statement is parsed into lexical units:

And / you / have to / be / 100% sure / because / there's (there / is) / no / going

back / on / Friday morning, / and / your / decision / could / cost / someone else

/ their / job.

Since the meaning of some expressions cannot be arrived at through the

composition of the meaning of its parts (i.e. have to, 100% sure, going back,

someone else), two morphemes have been subsumed under one lexical unit.

Following this, the Pragglejaz Group analyses every single lexical unit,

contrasting its basic and its contextual meaning. Hereby, they arrive at a clear

decision as to whether the unit is used metaphorically or not. One issue that arises

from their distinction of basic and contextual meanings of a lexical unit is the

definition of “basic”, as noted by Steen (2007: 15): The Pragglejaz Group name

historically older and more concrete human-oriented meanings in the same breath.

But historically older meanings do not always have to be more concrete. It turns

out, for example, that the verb “reinforce” was used in its sense “to make a group

of soldiers, police etc. stronger by adding more people or equipment” almost a

century before the more concrete meaning “to make a building, structure, or

object stronger“. The solution to this dilemma is the adoption of a synchronic

approach, which gives priority to more concrete human-oriented meaning.

For the purposes of this thesis, only those two out of the twenty lexical

units in the sentence where a metaphorical usage has been found will be

presented. The first instance concerns the expression “going back”, which has a

more basic meaning that refers to physically tracing one’s steps back. As opposed

to this, Ruth Davidson is unmistakably talking about the irreversible future voters

will be faced with after they have made a final decision in the referendum. Hence,

the lexical unit connects the domain of journey with the domain of life and is used

metaphorically in this context. The second instance concerns the lexical unit

27

“cost” which also has a more basic meaning that refers to the monetary value of

goods. Here, however, it is neither used in reference to a physical object, nor is

any monetary payment involved. Instead, Ruth Davidson portrays the Brexit as a

purchase that comes with a cost, that is, someone else’s job, disproportional to its

value, that is, what is gained from leaving the European Union. It follows that this

use, too, is metaphorical in the given context. Both times, the metaphorical

meaning becomes evident from a comparison between the more basic and the

contextual meaning (Pragglejaz Group, 2007: 10). These uses stand in contrast to

lexical units with a grammatical function in the sentence (e.g. and, to, because, on

etc.) and those with a literal meaning in the context (e.g. Friday morning,

decision, job).

But even after the metaphorically used words have been identified in a -

for the majority of cases - conclusive way, there is still a gap between these single

linguistic instances and the underlying conceptual metaphors. Although there are

many examples where the name of the particular conceptual metaphor is also used

in the linguistic expression, this is not necessarily the case at all times. As Steen ”

(1999: 57) emphasises, it cannot remain “an act of faith that particular metaphors

in language reflect particular metaphors in thought”. He therefore suggests that

the identification of conceptual metaphor in real discourse involves five steps

summarized below (2007: 16):

1. Find the metaphorical focus.

2. Find the metaphorical proposition.

3. Find the metaphorical comparison.

4. Find the metaphorical analogy.

5. Find the metaphorical mapping.

Although the expressions “there is no going back on Friday morning” and “your

decision could cost someone else their job” can be regarded as wholly

metaphorical, only two linguistic units are used metaphorically. They are the

metaphorical focus in Steen’s terms and have already been identified above. In a

second step, the statement is broken down into a set of propositions in small

capitals since metaphor is not just a tool of language but of thought. This step is

28

complicated, however, by the “bewildering” number of approaches to

propositionalization, as Steen admits (2007: 19). There is an agreement, however,

that a proposition should consist of a predicate, positioned in front, and then one

or more arguments (Steen, 1999: 62):

P1 (BE, 100% SURE)

P2 (THERE IS, NO GOING BACK, ON FRIDAY MORNING)

P3 (COST, YOUR DECISION, THEIR JOB, SOMEONE ELSE)

Proposition one and two are connected through a causal conjunction “because”

and proposition two and three by the conjunction “and”. The non-literally used

concepts are found in the subject “going back” of proposition two and the

predicate of proposition three, “cost”. They are related to the literally used

concepts included in the respective proposition (Steen, 1999: 66).

Step three requires the identification of a nonliteral comparison since

metaphors are assumed to be correspondences between two conceptual domains in

which perceived similarity plays an essential role. “Reconstruction of the implied

comparison is a critical step in understanding a metaphor”, Miller observes (1993:

381). When source and target domain are determined, the direction of the

conceptual mapping is set at the same time. For the first metaphorical expression

from proposition two, “going back”, the domains TIME and SPACE are compared.

The second metaphorical expression, “cost”, in proposition three is likened to the

consequences of the vote. In this way the domain ELECTION is likened to the

domain of FINANCE. Although the overall comparison structure is known after this

step, the precise mappings between the two domains are only identified in the next

step. This involves some degree of interpretation on the part of the analyst (Steen,

2007: 18).

In step four the open values of the source and target domain are defined. In

the case of the first conceptual metaphor, this can be done without much difficulty

since the spatialization of time is one of the best known conceptual metaphors. A

consecutive series of events, summarized as CHANGE in the Master Metaphor List,

is conceptualized in terms of moving forward along a path, summarized as

29

MOTION (Lakoff et al., 1991: 2). The similarity perceived between the outcome of

the referendum and a commercial transaction lies in the effect both can have on

the voters’ welfare. As an advocate of remaining in the European Union, Ruth

Davidson wants to persuade the voters that the decision to leave will have a

detrimental effect on their future. Commercial transactions, likewise, can either

benefit the buyer, or decrease his wealth, that is his well-being. The outcome of

the election that is linked to finance is an instance of the CAUSATION IS

COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION metaphor and its subtype HAVING DETRIMENTAL

THINGS HAPPEN TO ONE IS LOSING MONEY, which is less conventional than the

former (Lakoff et al., 1991: 25).

Finally, the analogy found in step four is transformed into a conceptual

mapping. Step five also reveals implicit knowledge we have about the source

domain that can be carried over to the target domain. The linguistic metaphor

“cost” links the voters’ professions to the realm of commercial transaction and

implies that the voters have a limited amount of resources they can decrease or

increase through their choice in the upcoming election (Steen, 2007: 19).

30

3. Metaphors Used in Television Debates on “Brexit”

3.1. Methodology

Perhaps the main point of criticism put forwards against conceptual metaphor

theory is the intuitiveness with which researchers provided linguistic examples for

the underlying metaphorical mappings they claimed to have found. In Moral

Politics, Lakoff (1996, 2002) offers only a handful of metaphorical expressions

that manifest the STRICT FATHER and NURTURANT PARENT model in American

politics: “founding fathers”, “father of his country”, “Uncle Sam”, “Big Brother”,

“fatherland” and “sons going to war” (1996: 153-154). His prediction that

Conservatives and Liberals use language in order to construct a completely

different world view was only born out in presidential speeches by Reagan and

Clinton in a study by Ahrens (2011). The proposed dichotomy could not be

confirmed in the other speeches analysed. Corpus linguistics therefore offers a

solution to remove the element of intuitiveness in metaphor analysis since it

allows researchers to identify the precise frequency that a given conceptual

metaphor occurs with. Arguments on whether certain conceptual metaphors are

central to a discourse or not can be answered conclusively on the basis of an

authentic set of linguistic data.

For the purpose of the present thesis, nine television debates from the

month of June 2016 were selected. All of them were broadcasted by leading

television channels in Great Britain before the EU referendum took place on 23

June of the same year (Statista 2016). The debates were transcribed and saved in a

word document with the support of Youtube’s Voice Recognition Tool, but

mistakes were edited manually to ensure good quality of the transcription. In the

analysis, introductions and closings by the hosts were omitted in order to

exclusively count the utterances by politicians, interviewers and members of the

audience, who asked questions and responded to politicians. In the case of the

“BBC Great Debate” on the EU referendum, the informative input on the three

main issues discussed, namely economy, immigration and Great Britain’s place in

the world, which was transmitted via a screen in the SSE arena in Wembley,

London, was also omitted from the word count. The debates differ in regard to the

31

number of speakers and the style of the discussion. In some debates up to six

politicians took turns in taking their stance on particular issues while in others

only one politician was questioned by an interviewer. In seven of the nine debates

members of the audience were able to ask the politicians a question and received

an answer.

In all of the debates, one component of the conceptual metaphor

ARGUMENT IS WAR, namely non-linguistic realization, can be observed especially

well (Kövecses, 2009: 14). If more than one speaker is featured in the debate, they

are positioned on opposite sides of the panel and confront each other with the

most powerful arguments possible. Their manoeuvres are supported or criticized

by the audience with applause and cheering. In some instances, members of the

audience also comment explicitly on how content they were with the answer they

received on their question.

Although the data analysed is definitely part of spoken discourse, there is

also an element of preparation on the part of the politicians involved. In addition,

many of the arguments put forward in the debates were developed and used

continuously throughout the period of time preceding the referendum. This is

visible by the use of repeated slogans, such as “Take back control”, and evasive

answers by politicians, which indicate that they may not have been prepared for

certain questions and escaped to familiar terrain in the discussion instead.

As previous analysis has shown (Krasnoboka & De Landtsheer, 2007;

Vertessen & De Landtsheer, 2007), politicians and media use metaphorical

language more frequently and more vehemently during election periods. A study

by De Landtsheer & Koch (2005) found that the media coverage on the

introduction of the single currency was more metaphorical in the EU member

states concerned than those that were not planning on changing their currency.

Politicians and media obviously know about the emotive effects metaphorical

language has, but are perhaps not always entirely aware of their knowledge.

Empirical experiments by Gibbs et al. (2002) demonstrated that metaphorical

language is more emotive than literal language. “Political leaders and journalists

can use the potential of metaphor in one or more directions, to enhance the

perceived greatness of the speaker, to reassure the audience, or in contrast, to

32

increase anxiety or raise anger”, De Landtsheer explains (2009: 63). For these

reasons, it can be assumed that politicians in the debates make use of strong

metaphoric language to convince the audience.

The date of broadcasting, title of the debates, and their respective word count are

summarized in the following table:

Table 1: Television Debates in June 2016

date TV

channel Title and speaker(s) Word count

(1) June 2 Sky News “EU: In or Out? with David

Cameron” 11.699

(2) June 3 Sky News “EU: In or Out? with Michael

Gove” 9.710

(3) June 6 BBC “Andrew Neill and Hilary Benn

Interview” 6.213

(4) June 7 ITV “ITV Brexit Debate” with Nigel

Farage and David Cameron 10.893

(5) June 9 ITV

“ITV Referendum Debate” with,

Andrea Leadsom, Gisela Stuart,

Boris Johnson, Angela Eagle,

Amber Rudd and Nicola

Sturgeon

21.891

(6) June 10 BBC “Nigel Farage and Andrew Neil

Interview" 5.778

(7) June 15 BBC “Question Time Special” with

Michael Gove 8.816

(8) June 17 BBC “Question Time Special” with

David Cameron 9.652

(9) June 21 BBC

“BBC EU Brexit Referendum:

The Great Debate” with Sadiq

Khan, Ruth Davidson, Frances

O’Grady, Boris Johnson, Andrea

Leadsom, Gisela Stuart

24.262

Total: 108.914

33

This kind of corpus-based approach to metaphor, however, raises some

methodological questions. Since metaphors are not necessarily based on lexical

items, they are more difficult to find in an extensive set of data that cannot be

searched manually. As Musolff (2004: 64) describes, the database itself is

“meaning-blind”. A manual search is the earliest metaphor identification method

and most time consuming (Stefanowitch, 2008: 2). Jäkel (1997), however,

justifies its advantages over other methods. Another option is to search the corpus

for source domains that are extracted via a field of suitable lexical items. But it is

difficult to decide how many lexical items have to be selected to exhaustively

identify all the metaphorical expressions belonging to a given conceptual

metaphor. Cameron and Deignan (2003: 151) warn that “if the researcher has not

comprehensively pre-identified all forms worthy of study”, some of them “may

not emerge from the data during analysis, and an important metaphorical use may

be missed”. The selection of these lexical items is facilitated if it can be based on

a preceding study with an exhaustive list (Partington, 2006; Koller, 2006). A third

possibility is to access the conceptual metaphors via their target domains. Lexical

items that are associated with the target domains are selected and, in a second

step, searched for in the whole corpus. For every occurrence of the lexical items, it

will then have to be decided whether they are used metaphorically or not.

Stefanowitsch (2006b) calls metaphorical expressions that explicitly mention the

vocabulary of the target domain “metaphorical patterns”. He has successfully used

his method of metaphorical pattern analysis (MPA) to identify the conceptual

methods common in expressing basic human feelings, namely ANGER, FEAR,

DISGUST, HAPPINESS and SADNESS. Tested against an earlier study by Kövecses

(1998), which had extracted the metaphors manually, his method proved to yield

equal results while being more efficient and less time-consuming. This approach

has also been adopted by Koivisto-Alanko (2000), Tissari (2003), Stefanowitch

(2004), Koivisto-Alanko & Tissari (2006). In addition, combinations of these

methods (Stefanowitsch, 2006a: 4-6) or, so-called “metaphor markers” (Cameron

& Deignan, 2003) can be used to extract metaphors from a corpus.

34

For this thesis, it was decided to look for all the metaphors and

metonymies manually in a pilot study. A small sized sample from the whole

corpus, the transcript of the television programme “BBC EU Brexit Referendum:

The Great Debate”, was searched. This programme will be referred to as “BBC

Great Debate” in the remainder of the thesis. The metaphorical or metonymic

expression in this transcript where collected in a table according to MIP

(Pragglejaz, 2007) and classified according to the conceptual metaphors they arise

from by using Steen’s method (2007) as described above. The metonymies

identified in the pilot study were restricted to few linguistic items that were then

searched in the whole corpus and will be discussed in a separate chapter. In a

second step, target domains of interest for the present discussion were selected.

The analysis of the metaphors yielded five target domains which are of interest for

the Brexit debate and were conceptualized through different metaphors which will

be discussed in detail below: LEAVE and REMAIN CAMPAIGN, THE EUROPEAN

UNION, IMMIGRATION and CONTROL.

The identification of target domains has several advantages for further

analysis of metaphor in discourse: Firstly, it saves time and makes identification

of metaphors in a large-scale corpus possible. As Charteris-Black (2014) explains,

“conceptual metaphor should be identified when there is evidence of the repeated

systematic use of the same source domain for the same target in a particular

discourse” (2014: 193). Furthermore, the preliminary selection of source domains

made it possible to exclude metaphorical expressions that were not of particular

interest for this study. Sadiq Khan’s promise at the onset of the Great Debate that

“wages will be higher” if Britain were to remain in the European Union, for

example, was classified as a clear instance of the conceptual metaphor MORE IS UP

in the pilot study. However, this is not a metaphorical expression that is

distinctive for the genre and topic that I want to investigate in this thesis. It is just

as likely to occur in different contexts. For this reason, it was decided to focus

exclusively on the target domains mentioned above.

In reference to some of the chosen target concepts a variety of conceptual

metaphors were used. On the other hand, some conceptual metaphors that would

be expected to occur in a discussion about the European Union in respect of

35

previous data were not or hardly mentioned in the corpus compiled. This is the

case for the FAMILY metaphor, commonly used in discourse about social

organizations. The reason for its absence in the television debates will also be

addressed in a separate section below. The following table summarizes the target

domains in small capitals and the lexical items used in reference to them in

quotation marks. The conceptual metaphors identified for the respective target

domains can be found in the second column. In addition, characteristics of the

respective source domains that are mapped onto the target are pointed out in the

third column. This is by no means an exhaustive list of mappings, but only a

summary of the most relevant ones that will be discussed in the remainder of the

thesis.

36

Table 2: Conceptual metaphors identified for target domains

number Target domain Conceptual metaphors identified Relevant mappings

(1)

EU (“European

Union”, “EU”)

THE EU AS A CONTAINER

Membership is clearly delineated

Leaving the European Union is spatial

movement.

THE EU AS A SUPPRESSOR The European Union prevents Great Britain

from realizing its full potential.

THE EU AS A DESTRUCTIVE FORCE The European Union harms Great Britain’s

body politic physically.

THE EU AS A PHYSICAL AILMENT The European Union harms Great Britain’s

body politic physically.

(2) LEAVE

CAMPAIGN

(“Leave campaign”,

“leave”)

THE LEAVE CAMPAIGN AS A GAMBLER

The Leave campaign is irresponsible and

takes unnecessary risks.

(3) REMAIN

CAMPAIGN

(“Remain

campaign”,

“remain”)

THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN IS PROJECT FEAR

The Remain campaign tries to scare voters

and talk Great Britain down.

37

(4) IMMIGRATION

(“immigration”,

“immigrants”,

“migrants”,

“movement”)

GREAT BRITAIN IS A CONTAINER Great Britain only has limited resources

and limited space to offer.

IMMIGRANTS ARE A NATURAL DISASTER

Immigration is uncontrollable.

Immigration worsens the living situation of

the native population.

(5)

CONTROL

(“control”)

CONTROL AS A PHYSICAL OBJECT

Control can be retrieved by physical

movement.

Control is clearly delineated.

CONTRONL IS UP On a vertical line, the EU is on top.

(6)

METONYMIES

(“table”,

“number(s)”,

“Brussels”)

NUMBER IMMIGRANTS Characteristic (countability) stands for the

entire person.

BRUSSELS FOR THE EU

Part stands for whole.

Centre of administration stands for the

entire organization.

A TABLE FOR THE EU

Part stands for whole.

Common decision making takes place

around a table.

38

Like in the pilot study, the lexical items associated with the target domains

selected from the corpus were then checked for their metaphorical usage

according to the Metaphor Identification Procedure developed by the Pragglejaz

Group (2007). Ideally, the reliability of the identification process could be

increased if two analysts worked on the transcripts separately (Charteris-Black,

2014: 179), but this was not possibly within the scope of this thesis. As far as the

counting of metaphor is concerned, I follow Charteris-Black (2014: 176) in

arguing that “the unit of measurement should be the phrase rather than the word”

since this is how metaphors typically appear in discourse. His view diverges from

the Pragglejaz Group (2007), who count the number of metaphorically used words

and, thus, identify two metaphors for the expression “wear the mantle” in their

example: “Sonia Ghandi has struggled to convince Indians that she is fit to wear

the mantle of the political dynasty into which she married” (2007: 3). Here, the

metaphoricity only arises from the combination of lexical items in the sentence,

which yields only one, instead of two metaphors.

One of the issues that occurred when analysing the “BBC Great Debate” in

the pilot study was that the majority of the most frequently identified metaphors

were highly conventional and did not represent a distinct feature of the language

used in television debates on the EU referendum. Metaphors which provided

particularly salient visual images in their novelty, on the other hand, were

identified a far smaller number of times or only once. It is undoubted, for

instance, that the metaphorical expression “so that we can plan ahead properly”

(Gisella Stuart on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:44:45-00:44:48) as a part of the

event structure metaphor shapes human cognition in general and, thus, the

expression is just as likely to occur in any other context. When a speaker in a

public debate uses the expression “this rotting carbuncle of the European Union”

(Tony Parsons on the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:08:30 - 01:08:33), on the other

hand, this is a metaphor distinct to this context that will, arguably, have a much

higher impact on listeners than the by far more frequently repeated event structure

metaphor. For this reason, Stefanwitsch’s claim that frequency is the only

criterion that shows how central certain conceptual metaphors are for certain

issues is not entirely accurate (2006: 65). Instead, novelty and salience are

39

additional criteria that need to be taken into account as well. De Landtsheer

(2009) has developed a method to calculate the metaphor power of a given

expression. In metaphor power analysis (MPA) not only frequency, but also

metaphor intensity and metaphor content are taken into account. Metaphor

intensity is related to novelty and states that original metaphors have a higher

impact than dormant or dead metaphors (Tsoukas, 1991). Last but not least,

metaphor content determines metaphor power through the source domain

employed. De Landtsheer (2009: 66-68) divides sources into six categories, such

as family, nature and illness, and assigns them different amounts of emotive

power. Her analysis shows frequency cannot be the only factor taken into account

when measuring the strength of a metaphorical expression.

Another question that was raised by the analysis of the sample was how

concrete the source domains of the metaphors identified needed to be. In the

traditional theory of conceptual metaphor, source domains are typically grounded

in basic physical experience. The pilot study showed, however, that there are a

number of metaphors which make use of source domains that are arguably just as

abstract as the target domain they conceptualize. Still, these metaphors enable us

to understand one thing in terms of something else. The Leave campaign in the

“BBC Great Debate” and, as will be shown, in the whole corpus referred to their

political opponents as “project fear”. FEAR in itself is an abstract concept that is

understood in terms of a number of conceptual metaphors (e.g. Kövecses 1998).

Nevertheless, it serves as the source domain that is mapped onto the target of the

Remain side in the argument. This thesis is not the only one confronted with this

methodological issue. Musolff (2016: 91) recently argued that a less rigid

definition of metaphors is needed to account for the data in linguistic corpora: “a

discursive, dynamic tool of assimilating any target topic to a more familiar set of

concepts, in order to redirect and reshape its understanding by the respective

communication partners”. The degree of familiarity of a particular source domain

is judged by the language users according to the sociocultural context. Since it

explains the use of metaphorical language found in the corpus, Musolff’s view

(2016) will be adopted for the present thesis.

40

For this study, it does not make sense to take a purely quantitative

approach due to the small size of the given corpus. Therefore, the frequency of

metaphors that occurred repeatedly will be included, but single instances will,

nevertheless, be incorporated in the discussion.

Finally, this thesis does not argue that metaphor and metonymy in political

discourse need to be identified because they have such a manipulative impact on

the audience, who is rendered defenceless. This “therapeutic” stance towards

conceptual metaphor analysis earned Lakoff (1996, 2002) much criticism (e.g.

Hutton, 2001; Twardzisz 2013: 37-62). His aim to expose conceptual structures

which users themselves may not be aware of is seen as patronizing towards the

public. In defence of Lakoff, it must be said that, according to his earlier

publication, metaphors “can be self-fulling prophecies” (Lakoff and Johnson,

1980: 156; emphasis added), not that they invariably have to be. Crucial in this

disagreement is the point that language users must be granted some agency in

whether they fully accept entailments of conceptual metaphors or not. The

consequences of metaphorical language can only be hypothesised about in

hindsight because the reception by the audience needs to be taken into account. As

Musolff (2016: 30) argues, conceptual metaphors are “contestable and depend for

their success on their discursive plausibility”. Overall, conceptual metaphor can

be seen to have persuasive, but not manipulative power. Van Dijk (2006) makes

the following distinction between persuasion and manipulation:

“(. . .) in persuasion the interlocutors are free to believe or act as they

please, depending on whether or not they accept the arguments of the

persuader, whereas in manipulation recipients are typically assigned a

more passive role: they are victims of manipulation. This negative

consequence of manipulative discourse typically occurs when the

recipients are unable to understand the real intentions or to see the full

consequences of the beliefs or actions advocated by the manipulator. This

may be the case especially when the recipients lack the specific knowledge

that might be used to resist manipulation”. (Van Dijk, 2006: 361)

41

In the television debates analysed for the following study, the politicians of the

Leave campaign, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage, characterized

the European Union as “a job destroying machine”, quoting the high

unemployment rates in Southern European countries as proof for their claim. This

metaphor will be discussed in greater detail below. However, it can be observed

that their conceptualization of the European Union was not indiscriminately

accepted by other language users. Host David Dimbleby confronted Michael

Gove on the “BBC Question Time Special”, refuting his claim of the European

Union as “a job destroying machine”:

(9) “Just to pick up on the job destroying machine that you called the EU

the other day: At the Tory Party conference you were boasting that

you’d created more than twenty million jobs, more than any other

government in history. That doesn’t sound like a job destroying

machine or are we out of the EU in terms of all the many jobs we

actually created?” (David Dimbleby on “BBC Question Time Special”,

00:23:17-00:23:35)

Michael Gove countered that many of the jobs created had been filled by

immigrants who had come to Great Britain because they “suffered” from the

European Union and the introduction of the single currency. Nevertheless, it is

clear that David Dimbleby criticized Michael Gove for his use of metaphor and

compared it to other, contradictory statements he had made in a different context.

Voters and language users in general, thus, are not necessarily victims of

politicians’ persuasive metaphors.

In the following discussion, I will explain the conceptual metaphors

identified in the corpus in greater detail. Exemplary utterances (10-69) by

speakers in the television debates will be used in order to illustrate them. The

examples can sometimes contain more than one conceptual metaphor, but the ones

focused on will be highlighted by using italics. The choice of particular source

domains for the target domains selected above will yield certain entailments for

the issues treated. Last but not least, the findings of this study will be compared to

42

those in existing studies, such as the EUROMETA corpus (Musolff, 2004 and

2016), whenever possible.

3.2. Remain and Leave Campaign: Project Fear vs. Gambling

with Britain’s Future

The Remain Campaign was frequently labelled as “project fear” by politicians of

the Leave side in the argument. There are 13 instances of “project fear” explicitly

mentioned in the corpus. This, however, does not take related terms like

“scaremongering” and “pessimism” into account, which were also frequently used

to paint a negative picture of the Remain campaign.

One example is Boris Johnson’s response to the question what would

happen to the British economy in reaction to their leaving the European Union. He

argues that there would be no economic shock and predicts that Great Britain will

still have access to the single market which MP Angela Eagle, supporter of the

Remain side, vehemently opposes. Boris Johnson, subsequently, dismisses her

argument as “project fea”r. He also argues that their own supporters are deterring

voters from deciding to leave the European Union:

(10) “I think we are just starting to degenerate into project fear again,

don’t you think? I’m very struck by the way they do this because

there’s one, there’s a member of this panel [pointing at the supporters

of the Remain side] who complained about the Remain campaign and

said that their miserable and fear-based campaign starts to insult

people’s intelligence.” (Boris Johnson on the “ITV Referendum

Debate”, 00:26:06-00:26:22)

Andrea Leadsom, similarly, accuses the Remain campaign of scaremongering in

the same debate when the benefits of leaving the European Union for the NHS are

discussed. While the Leave side argues that money presently invested into the

European Union could instead be used to fund the NHS, the Remain campaign

contests this view saying that there would be no more money available for the

NHS and was, consequently, confronted with the following accusation:

43

(11) “It’s absolute nonsense. It’s scaremongering – and it’s miserable

scaremongering – and people in this country will see through it”.

(Andrea Leadsom on the “ITV Referendum Debate”, 00:54:21-

00:54:29)

This depiction of the Remain campaign clearly has an impact on British voters.

On the “EU: In or Out?” debate with David Cameron, the prime minister was

blamed by a member of the audience for scaring people:

(12) “I do want to point out that I’ve been strongly wanting to vote into

the EU, but to be honest the entire campaign has been a shamble for it.

I’ve seen nothing but scaremongering. I see no valid facts at all”.

(member of the audience on “EU: In or Out?” with David Cameron,

00:30:19-00:30:30)

In line with this general metaphor is Conservative MP Priti Patel’s statement that

the Remain campaign is pessimistic. Asked how her support of the Leave

campaign squares with her own position in a government that won the election on

the basis of not taking a risk with the economy, she countered:

(13) “We’ve heard very clearly tonight that we’re the optimists. We

have a brighter, more prosperous future outside the European Union, a

complete contrast to the Remain side that want to constantly talk

Britain down. (…) We can negotiate new trade deals. It’s pessimistic to

hear from the Remain side that they’re not even interested in doing

that”. (Priti Patel on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:34:41-00:35:00)

The closing words by the Secretary of State of Justice at the time, Michael Gove,

once more contrasted the alleged pessimism of the Remain campaign with the

hopefulness of the Leave side and are eerily reminiscent of the Donald Trump’s

slogan, “Make America great again”, in the US election campaign:

44

(14) “Can I just say thank you to all of the audience: This debate is so

important. It really matters to all of us what you decide and I think

instead of the pessimism of the Remain campaign we have an

opportunity to think of the next generation if we have faith in their

talent, in their generosity, in their hard work, we can, if we leave the

European Union, ensure the next generation make this country once

more truly great” (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:55:37-

00:56:04)

Similarly, Tony Parson, writer and supporter of the Leave campaign, argued: “I

personally believe we live in the greatest country in the world” (“BBC Great

Debate”, 01:36:45-01:36:53) and, hence, mimics American rhetoric. Charteris-

Black (2014: 155-159) also detects an influence of American rhetoric on British

politicians in the borrowing of the beacon metaphor. Orators like Martin Luther

Kind, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have frequently compared

the United States of America to a beacon for the rest of the world since the

metaphor evokes positive emotions and adds positive evaluations to their own

policies. In 1997, shortly after the victory of his party, Tony Blair adopted the

image of Great Britain as a beacon to the world throughout his speech. Here,

Michael Gove builds on this tradition:

(15) “[…] our democratic traditions in Scotland, Wales, England and

Northern Ireland are what have enabled us, globally, to be a beacon,

setting an example, being a force for good and making sure that we are

a great place for everyone to live” (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”,

00:43:45-00:44:00)

Boris Johnson is similarly influenced by American rhetoric in his closing

statement at the “BBC Great Debate”. Undoubtedly, the US celebrates the world’s

most famous Independence Day, a celebration which Boris Johnson predicts for

Great Britain:

45

(16) “If we vote Leave and take back control, I believe that this

Thursday could be our countries Independence Day”. (Boris Johnson

on the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:42:54-01:43:00)

Framed in this way, leaving the European Union becomes a provocative matter of

pride for Great Britain. The usage of metaphor shifts the question from whether

Britain is better off inside the European Union to whether they are strong enough

to make it on their own without the aid of the 27 other member states. The Leave

campaign is almost representing the referendum as a test of courage for the

country. This entails that voting to remain is an act of fear and distrust of one’s

own country. Charteris-Black (2014: 201) describes how metaphor can arouse

feelings that are favourable to the speakers, which is one of its seven main

purposes. The politicians on the Leave side achieve this effect by emphasizing the

economic strength and independence of Britain and referring back to its historical

success. In addition, they manage to conceal that they, too, try to scare voters

about the future of Great Britain, should they stay in the European Union.

Naturally, both campaigns attempted to bring to light the negative consequences

of what they believed to be the wrong decision, but only the Leave campaign was

successful in establishing the PROJECT FEAR metaphor and portraying their

political opponents in a negative way. Therefore, metaphors in political discourse

“offer positive representations of the speaker and his supporters, of their actions

and policies, and a negative representation of opponents and their actions and

policies” (Charteris-Black, 2014: 204).

In response, the Remain campaign created two variations of the PROJECT

FEAR metaphor, namely “project hate” and “project lies”. These were, however,

mentioned far less frequently in the corpus. There are only three instances of

“project lies” in all the television debates and all of them came from a member of

the audience in the “EU: In or Out?” debate with Michael Gove. (This is not to

say, of course, that the two sides did not accuse each other of lying more often,

but the variation on “project fear” as “project lies” was only put forward three

times). In a single instance, Sadiq Khan labels the Leave side as “project hate”

46

regarding the issue of immigration in the “BBC Great Debate”. He is definitely

aware that he has to face the pervasive PROJECT FEAR metaphor in the debate:

(17) “You might start off saying how wonderful immigration is. But

your campaign hasn’t been project fear. It’s been project hate as far as

immigration is concerned”. (Sadiq Khan on the “BBC Great Debate”,

00:44:04-00:44:21)

Conversely, the Remain campaign framed their opponents in the argument as

gambling with Britain’s future. As Sadiq Khan exemplifies in his initial summary

of the Remain side’s argument and Frances O’Grady repeats later:

(18) “Even those on the Remain side admit it’s a big gamble”. (Sadiq

Khan on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:05:41-00:05:49)

(19) “Union reps, from BMW, Toyota, Ford, Nissan, you name it,

across the manufacturing sector are saying that we cannot afford this

gamble with our jobs, our wages, our livelihoods and our rights”.

(Frances O’Grady on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:14:33-00:14:47)

The conceptual metaphor BREXIT IS A GAMBLE is also implicit in David

Cameron’s closing statement on the “EU: In or Out?” debate where he addresses

the audience one last time:

(20) “As we go home, we wake up in the morning, we look our children

and grandchildren in the eyes who we’re responsible for through our

pay packet. Let us not roll a dice on their future.” (David Cameron on

“EU: In or Out?”, 00:53:22-00:53:32)

In this same debate, one member of the audience drew a particularly vivid image

of the Leave campaign’s lack of information about what would happen after

Brexit. Although he chose the source domain WAR instead of GAMBLE, the

entailments are similar to the examples given above, namely that the Leave side

47

are not taking responsibility for the consequences of Great Britain’s leaving the

European Union:

(21) “With all due respect, Mr. Gove, it appears to me it’s almost like a

first world war general. You’re waving the flag, you’re saying, ‘Over

the top, men’, but you have no idea what’s in the front line or what the

casualty will be in the conflicts to come”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or

Out?”, 00:37:40-00:37:55)

Here, the Leave campaigners are conceptualized as irresponsible military leaders

who risk their soldiers’ lives without sufficient knowledge of the terrain or the

odds of victory. Their lack of strategy is bizarrely advertised by waving the flag.

The soldiers, on the other hand, stand in for the voters and supporters of the

Remain campaign. They are naïve, uninformed and trust their leaders blindly. The

consequences for their imprudent decision will lead to a fight for survival that will

likely cost them their lives and impact the future generations to come. This

metaphor entails a reproach of the Leave campaigners, who did not bother to

inform the voters of the detrimental consequences of Brexit for the country, and of

their voters, who acted on hollow promises.

Another way to highlight the uncertainty inherent in leaving the European

Union is the metaphor of a leap in the dark without knowing what lies ahead.

Sadiq Khan pointedly used this image in his opening and closing statements:

(22) “The stakes are high. You either vote Leave and take a leap in the

dark or you vote Remain and build on that prosperity”. (Sadiq Khan on

the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:02:01-00:02:08)

(23) “You [confronting the Leave side] want the British public to take a

one-way leap in the dark without a plan”. (Sadiq Khan on the “BBC

Great Debate”, 01:34:10-01:34:17)

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3.3. Dysfunctional Family Ties with the European Union

It is striking that hardly any of the lexemes manifesting the FAMILY metaphor can

be found in the corpus of the television debates. Andreas Musolff (2016) found

that the relationship between Britain and Europe was predominantly depicted as a

troubled marriage in the EUROMETA corpus, a bilingual sample of press

coverage on EU politics in Britain and Germany since 1990 (2016: 34). This

corpus also shows that the possibility of leaving the EU was referred to as marital

rows, divorce or adultery previous to the referendum. The Daily Mail and The

Independent described an “amicable divorce” from the EU, while The Economist

humoured: “Britain and Europe are like a couple in a difficult marriage. One day

they have a blazing row; the next they want to kiss and make up” (quoted in

Musolff, 2016: 33).

The “amicable divorce” was mentioned by Nigel Farage when he

answered a question on the economic hit Britain might take as a consequence of

leaving the European Union:

(24) “Once we have divorced ourselves, amicably, from the political

union we will then go on buying cars and wine and trading”. (Nigel

Farage on the “ITV Brexit Debate”, 00:03:40-00:03:45)

The second time “divorce” was mentioned, it was again Nigel Farage who argued

in his interview with Andrew Neill that “divorce from political union” would

allow Great Britain to “re-engage with the rest of the world” (“Nigel Farage and

Andrew Neil Interview”, 00:27:04-00:27:09). The only time this divorce was

painted in a negative light was put forward by a member of the audience in in one

of the debates:

(25) “It appears to me that you’re asking people to vote for a divorce

and sort the financial settlement out afterwards. And that makes no

sense to me. You know, there’s lots of people who divorce and the last

thing you want to do is to try and sort out the money afterwards. You

need to negotiate before. And without having a plan in place, without

49

having put the effort in before, it makes no sense to me”. (member of

the audience on “EU: In or Out? with Michael Gove”, 00:37:07-

00:37:36)

The argument that Micheal Gove and the Leave campaign are unprepared for the

financial settlement of the divorce from Europe, refers to their apparent lack of

trade deals they should have prepared in case of the Brexit.

As Anderson (1983) argues, communities are imagined. Since metaphors

are the principal linguistic instrument of imagination and construction of social

reality, FAMILY metaphors can have a profound impact on the way the European

Union is conceived of. After all, metaphors “constitute the object they signify”

(Hülsse, 2006: 403). During the enlargement of the European Union during the

1990s, the FAMILY metaphor was often employed in reference to the joining of the

Easter European states. The enlargement was viewed as a “family reunion” or as

“homecoming” and the new member states as “our European brothers” (Hülsse,

2006: 406). As Hülsse (2006) observes, this depoliticises the enlargement process

and implies that membership is a birth right: it has to be granted to the Eastern

European states regardless of whether they fulfil the required conditions or not.

However, elements from the source domain of the FAMILY were

apparently not seen as fitting for the relationship between the European Union and

Great Britain in the television debates analysed. As can be seen from the slogan of

the Leave campaign on public transport (“We send the EU £350 million a week.

Let’s fund our NHS instead. Vote Leave.”) the European Union is never

conceptualized as a provider or an equal. In addition, EU regulations are issued by

a stranger to the country, somebody who is entirely unrelated to the best interests

of Great Britain. Such a relationship is much easier to break up than strong family

ties between the “European brothers”, as the member states have been called in

the past (Hülsse, 2006: 406). Rather, the EU suppresses the country with its

regulations and, simultaneously, takes more financial resources than it gives back.

Since none of these elements fit the target domain EU MEMBERSHIP, it is not

surprising that neither the FAMILY nor the related HOME metaphor occurred in the

50

corpus, which would have entailed a primordial and natural position of Britain in

the European Union.

It may be that Great Britain had never sufficiently felt to be a part of a

family of nations for politicians to use family terms when addressing their

potential voters. When the Amsterdam Treaty was negotiated in 1997, the new

currency was metaphorically framed as a “child” (Musolff, 2004). In contrast to

the other member states, Great Britain never became the “parent” of this child.

What is more, the strongest relationship between member states of the EU was

always depicted between France and Germany, a (married) couple. Great Britain’s

awkward role was expressed as “ménage a trois” or “love triangle” by the press

(Musolff, 2004: 15). “In the long gestation of Europe’s Economic and Monetary

Union […] it suddenly seems likely this week that the anxious parents, Germany

and France, are expecting a soft baby euro”, The Guardian wrote on 30 May 1997

for example. In addition, the more elaborate FAMILY metaphors Musolff identified

in the newspaper articles might be restricted to written language. In this sample of

transcripts, at least, not even the Remain supporters made use of metaphors about

family ties with Europe.

3.4. Immigration

The source domains utilized to talk about immigration in the television debates

are conceptually closely linked to the NATION AS A CONTAINER metaphor. Since

containers have an inside, an outside, distinct boundaries and openings that can be

closed completely or partially, there is only a limited capacity of content that the

nation can make room for. This conceptualisation is, of course, not exclusive to

Great Britain, but can be observed across European countries: Del-Teso-Craviotto

(2009) demonstrates how the minority of immigrants from Argentina is

constructed as the “out-group” in Spain. Von der Volk (2003) examines the right-

wing political discourse in France and finds metaphors of AGRESSION, WAR and

WATER, which all highlight the loss of control over immigration. Also, TRAFFIC

metaphors are used by the media to suggest easy access to the benefits of the

French social system and BUILDING metaphors to describe the limited restriction

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to the immigration process. Charteris-Black (2006) analysed the British right-

wing political discourse and media in spoken and written sources and found two

primary metaphors in reference to immigration that overlap roughly with the

findings of this study. Firstly, there is the CONTAINER metaphor already

mentioned. Secondly, there is the metaphor of NATURAL DISTASTER, in particular

those metaphorical expressions connected to WATER such as tsunamis, floods and

tidal waves. Charteris-Black (2006) argues that both these metaphors have

persuasive power by evoking strong emotions of fear and desire for protection.

Only two instances of the WATER metaphor were found in the corpus. In both of

these examples there is a NATURAL DISASTER envisaged because of the vast

number of immigrants:

(26) “I’ve been campaigning against EU enlargement for 20 years

because I thought letting in people whose average incomes were so

much lower than ours would lead to big migratory waves and

problems.” (“Nigel Farage and Andrew Neil Interview”, 00:19:15-

00:19:24)

(27) “How do we deal with the increased demand on our public services

given the seemingly never-ending stream of people arriving from

Europe?” (member of the audience on “EU: In or Out? with David

Cameron”, 00:33:30-00:33:40)

(28) “What we’ve seen over the last 20 years is that the waves of

globalization, whether it be services, people or goods – this institution

[the EU] has not been able to deal with”. (Gisela Stuart on the “ITV

Referendum Debate”, 01:19:09-01:19:20)

In the last utterance “waves” are actually specified as “of globalization” by

Gisella Stuart where “globalization” seems to be conceptualized as FLUID, which

in not a conventional metaphor. Since this expression is immediately followed by

“people”, a concept which his far more likely to be conceptualized as FLUID, it

was counted as belonging to the same category. The fact that Gisela Stuart puts

52

“services” and “goods” on the same level with immigrants further emphasises the

dehumanizing effect that the WATER metaphor has.

Moreover, the WATER metaphor is particularly apt at conveying the loss of

control on immigration into the country (Van der Valk, 2000: 234). A report of

migration in the news from 2010 to 2012 (Allen & Blinder, 2013) found that other

water-based metaphors, such as “influx”, “wave”, and “flood”, are among the

most frequently used for immigration. The same report also showed that “illegal”

is the descriptor most frequently used in connection with immigrants. The pairing

of the world “illegal” and “immigrants” in combination with the WATER metaphor

can be critically misleading since the vast majority of immigrants in Great Britain

have, in fact, legal status. The rising numbers of immigrants are therefore not as

uncontrolled as the rhetoric in the television debates and media reports suggests.

Connected to the idea of NATION STATE AS A CONTAINER is the source

domain PRESSURE that builds up if there is too much of a fluid inside the

container. “Pressure” in connection with immigration is mentioned a total of 48

times in the corpus investigated, showing that this is a central category for the

target domain IMMIGRATION. On the one hand, pressure is linked to the demand

on the NHS and public services Great Britain offers to its people, on the other

hand, migrants are seen as putting downwards pressure on locals’ wages.

(29) “Those people in Greece and Spain, who are suffering so much as a

result of the European Union, are coming here in order to put pressure

on jobs here”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:15:48-00:15:55)

(30) “If we remain in the EU, what plans do you have to deal with the

pressure of migrants on the NHS and its workers?” (member of

audience on “ITV Brexit Debate” addressed to David Cameron,

00:34:16-00:34:23)

(31) “Uncontrollable immigration is having a dampening effect on

wages and what we’re finding is: school places have pressure on,

doctors’ surgery appointments and, of course, getting onto the housing

ladder.” (Andrea Leadsom on the “ITV Referendum Debate”,

00:09:24-00:09:39)

53

In the last example, both WATER (“dampening effect”) and CONTAINER (“pressure

on”) metaphors are combined without causing any problem for the audience’s

understanding. “Strain”, as in ”Our NHS is under tremendous strain” (“BBC

Question Time Special with Michael Gove”, 00:29:26-00:29:29), and “drive

down”, as in “In too many places immigration has driven down local wages”

(“BBC Great Debate”, 00:19:19-00:19:26), are also lexicalizations of the

CONTAINER metaphor that suggest limited resources. They occurred three times

respectively in connection to immigration in the corpus. The entailment that all of

these expressions have in common is that immigration is detrimental for the living

conditions of those already living in Britain.

The concept of a nation state containing all the necessary resources for its

people, which are limited in quantity, is also manifested in the argument that

immigrants should “put in” before they can “take out” of that system:

(32) “Crucially on immigration and the movement of people, I said I

didn’t think it was right that people could come to our country and

immediately take out”. (Nigel Farage on the “ITV Brexit Debate”,

00:29:31-00:29:38)

(33) “The right answer is the approach that David Cameron has taken,

which is negotiating a special arrangement with the European Union

whereby people who come here could only take out when they’ve put

in”. (Angela Eagle on the “ITV Referendum Debate”, 00:08:53-

00:09:04)

(34) “Some economic surveys will say that EU migrants pay more tax

than they take out in benefits”. (“Nigel Farage and Andrew Neil

Interview”, 00:06:49-00:06:55)

There are eleven instances in which the CONTAINER metaphor is realized through

these phrasal verbs. What is more, “take out” is only used in the sense of

“receiving benefits from the country” in the entire corpus. These findings show

that there are conceptual mappings between the domains NATION and CONTAINER

54

that enable politicians in the debates to talk about “taking out” and “putting in”

without explicit reference to Great Britain or its government

A third and last conceptualization device in reference to immigration

found in this corpus is to the NUMBER metonymy. Although the metonymy is

often explicated as “number of people”, “number” or the plural “numbers” occur

by themselves 46 times. As can be seen from the frequency of this metonymy,

politicians and audience members in the debate are very likely to refer to

“numbers coming into Great Britain”, rather than “people” or even “numbers of

people”. Obviously, the NUMBER metonymy is far more suited to convey the

Leave side’s wish to control how many persons are allowed to stay in the country

than the WATER metaphor that symbolizes the loss of control. Like the metaphors

mentioned above, the metonymy also deprives immigrants of their human status

by reducing them to their single feature of countability.

(35) “And it’s because I believe our country is so great that I want to

control who comes here and the numbers that come here”. (Michael

Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:33:37-00:33-49)

(36) “We need to build a house every four minutes night and day just to

cope with the current numbers”. (Nigel Farage on the “ITV Brexit

Debate”, 00:17:30-00:17:37)

(37) “When it comes to immigration outside the EU, we do put a limit

on numbers that come for economic reasons”. (David Cameron on the

“ITV Brexit Debate”, 00:32:01-00:32:08)

(38) “Part of the reason of those stresses in the long term is because we

cannot control the numbers coming in”. (Gisella Stuart on the “ITV

Referendum Debate”, 00:51:18-00-00:51:23)

Like Musolff (2016) found, the public media does not make use of openly hostile

metaphors towards immigrants. In newspaper articles on immigration since 1990

PARASITE imagery, historically employed to spread the ideology of totalitarian

systems, hardly occurred; neither did it in the television debates investigated here.

Shockingly, PARASITE metaphors are much easier to be found in anti-immigration

55

blog posts where the language use is so harsh that “there is little conceptual

difference to Nazi propaganda” (Musolff, 2016: 87). The internet seems to give a

license to such conceptualizations. Although it is true that no such blatant hostility

and racism towards immigrants were identified in the corpus, there are no

instances of metaphors that cast a positive light on immigration either.

Steen (2008: 222-223) introduced the category of “deliberate metaphor” in

regard to figurative language use that is “a relatively conscious discourse strategy

that aims to elicit particular rhetorical effects” and is “expressly meant to change

the addressee’s perspective on the referent or topic”. Deliberate and non-

deliberate metaphors are presented as the solution to the paradoxical problem that

metaphor analysis requires the comparison of source and target domains but that

metaphorical processing, according to empirical studies, does not always involve

this comparison and relies on semi-automatic categorization instead, especially

when it comes to conventionalized metaphors (Steen, 2008: 232-238). Gibbs

(2011) opposes this view by arguing that the composition process of a text or

speech may be deliberate, but that the way that metaphors are accessed is

inherently automatic. Thus, no conscious comparison of source and target

domains takes place, which renders the distinction between deliberate and non-

deliberate metaphors unnecessary (Gibbs, 2011: 49). But purposeful

communication is used deliberately to achieve certain effects on one’s audience

and new metaphors are constantly found to draw desired mappings between two

concepts. This means that speakers, especially those in public discourse, cannot be

relieved of the responsibility of choosing their language. This is the view taken by

Deignan (2011), Müller (2011), Steen (2011) and Musolff (2016)

3.5. The European Union as a Container

The EUROPEAN UNION AS A CONTAINER is one of the least structured metaphors

in the corpus since it is an ontological metaphor, but clearly the most frequently

repeated. The debates on Sky News with David Cameron and Michael Gove are

called “In or Out?” and politicians talk about “leaving” or “remaining in” the

European Union. The blended word form “Brexit” itself is a manifestation of the

56

container image. Clearly, the geographical location of Great Britain will not

change after the referendum, but the political decision of the “exit” is

conceptualized as spatial movement out of the European container. Petrica (2011:

149) observes that, especially for insular countries, such as Great Britain or Malta,

joining the European Union seems to change geographical location, giving rise to

the conceptual metaphor EUROPE IS A GEOGRAPHY CHANGER. Membership

exchanges isolation and limited political relations and resources for a more central

position within the multinational organization.

Great Britain’s position as a country that wants to leave the container is

unusual since being inside is commonly judged as an advantage. Tekin (2010)

explains how the container metaphor is employed to draw a clear boundary

between the countries inside the European Union and the outsider Turkey. In this

case, Turkey is described as “knocking on the door” of Europe and asking for

entrance in order to be admitted into the security of the European container

(Tekin, 2010: 195-204). Since leaving the presumably beneficial place in the

centre of administration and political decision making is not inherently regarded

as positive, the Remain campaign warned about the dangers of being outside this

community while the Leave campaign concentrated on casting a bad light on

Europe in different ways:

(39) “This is a one way ticket. If we’re out, we’re out. We will pay with

our jobs and wages if we go.” (Frances O’Grady on the “BBC Great

Debate”, 01:02:12-01:02:28)

(40) “There is a contrast between this side of the argument that is

offering hope and that side of the argument that is offering nothing but

fear about life outside”. (Boris Johnson on the “ITV Referendum

Debate”, 01:45:09-01:45:15)

(41) “We have a strong position at the centre of Europe. It makes us

stronger, safer and better off”. (Amber Rudd on the “ITV Referendum

Debate”, 01:42:30-01:42:37)

57

It is significant that the CONTAINER metaphor in the examples above suggests a

clear distinction between who is outside and inside an organization. David

Cameron stressed the special status of Great Britain in the European Union

multiple times since the country neither joined the single currency nor the

Schengen area, but still enjoys the economic benefits of being a member. His

argument revealed that membership does not equal membership. The CONTAINER

metaphor, however, does not permit such an interpretation. At best, one can be on

the brink of entering or exiting the container, but otherwise the absolute location

is either inside or outside the organization. Like other figures and tropes in

language, metaphor works to construct “social representation of ingroup and

outgroup” (Van Dijk 2000: 100).

The conceptualization of the European Union as a container also persists in the

post-Brexit scenario imagined by the prime minister:

(42) “The European Union doesn't stop existing just because we've left.

The channel doesn't get any wider if we decide to leave. A group of

people would be sitting around a table making decisions about our

biggest market, about the future of our continent, about things that

affect us and we would have our nose sort of pressed to the window

trying to find out what decision they will make”. (David Cameron on

“EU: In or Out?”, 00:15:06-00:15:26)

Here, David Cameron also adds an evaluative judgement to the distinction

between the inside and the outside. What is close to the centre of the container is

at the heart of the self and in control. By leaving the European Union, Great

Britain will lose this position and be unable to know what happens behind the

impenetrable wall of the European container. Another image used by the Remain

campaign to anticipate the peripheral position Great Britain will have after Brexit

is that of a queue of countries that are waiting to trade with the United States:

(43) “Let’s be clear about this: Remain has highlighted President

Obama’s threat. He said a couple of weeks back that if we left the EU,

58

we’d be at the back of the queue when it comes to trade deals”.

(“Hilary Benn and Andrew Neil Interview”, 00:22:35-00:22: 43)

(44) “If we come out, we go to the back of the queue. That’s not project

fear. That’s what Obama said”. (Ruth Davidson on the “BBC Great

Debate”, 00:29:57-00:30:06)

Brexit, in other words, is an unwise move for Great Britain because it means

leaving its privileged position at the front, which it has achieved through

membership, in order to go to the back of the queue. In contrast to the vertical

dimension observed for the CONTROL IS UP metaphor, politicians introduce a

horizontal dimension which classifies countries according to their relative position

to the centre. The smaller the distance to the centre is, the greater the influence of

the country in question. As was already observed in the case of Turkey, most

countries wish to progressively get closer to the centre. This explains why the

image of a queue is perfectly suitable to envisage the situation. Chilton (2004:

204) describes how spatial containment schemas of this sort “make concepts of

the group and identity available”. This conceptualization is also used for

individual countries, such as Great Britain, which was demonstrated in reference

to the target domain IMMIGRATION. Since metaphor typically explains the less

familiar in terms of the more familiar, the container schema is naturally extended

to the multi-national organization of the EU in this case.

One variation of the CONTAINER metaphor is THE EUROPEAN UNION IS A

HOUSE. The two conceptual metaphors share “the notion of a bounded area

protecting what is inside from external danger” (Charteris-Black, 2006: 563). This

was first coined by Gorbatchev in his phrase “the common house of Europe” and

was widely used in European politics after 1989 (Chilton & Ilyin, 1993). The

HOUSE metaphor is more specific in that buildings, unlike containers, can be

constructed by their inhabitants according to their preferences. In the following

example, however, Michael Gove declines that Great Britain had any part in

building the European Union:

59

(45) “Instead of having a fractious relationship which – let’s be honest –

we do have at the moment, we can move to being friendly neighbours.

And I think far better than being a difficult lodger in a house that we

didn’t design is being a great neighbour in a home that we can call our

own”. (Michael Gove on Sky News, 00:46:20-00:46:36)

Great Britain assumes the passive role that merely goes along with the plans of the

European Union. But these plans do not fit the interests of Great Britain because it

did not take part in the design of the house where they both have to live. By

regaining control over its own political, social and economic issues, Britain is

taking care of its own container and, thus, building a home that the British people

can call their own. The conception as a “difficult lodger” suggests that the present

situation, by contrast, is unpleasant for both parties.

As shown in this chapter, the European identity is imagined in terms of a

container. This shows how we are still caught in nationalist thinking patterns,

which do not allow for transition zones between the self and the other. Container

metaphors propose that there are clear-cut boundaries between entities and, thus,

imagine identity as exclusive. As Hülsse (2006) has shown, the only metaphor

used in the European enlargement process that was able to convey a post-modern

or post-national identity, is the PATH metaphor. The abundance of other

metaphors that describe national identity, on the other hand, proves that the

European community is only rarely envisaged as a post-modern political entity, as

proposed by some (e.g. Schimmelfennig, 2001; van Ham, 2001; Manners &

Whitman, 2003; Scott, 2005).

In the Brexit debate, PATHS as a source domain would have proved a

helpful device to form a mental picture of the different degrees of membership

David Cameron tried to describe. PATHS conceptualize identity in terms of

degrees and stages, rather than well-defined borders. Although he did not

explicitly denounce it, Tim Farron nevertheless criticized the construction of

national identity the CONTAINER metaphor entails:

60

(46) “Are we an outward-looking, decent, embracing, tolerant country,

confident of our place in the world? Or are we insular? Are we small?

Are we glowering across the white cliffs of Dover, something that is

very un-British? I’m voting in because I’m a patriot!” (Tim Farron on

the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:36:16-01:36:36)

3.6. Taking back Control

The pilot study showed that the Leave campaign’s slogan, “Take back control”,

was mentioned a staggering 22 times. This trend was continued in the entire

corpus where the slogan occurred a total of 60 times, often used prominently by

politicians at the end of a statement in order to finish their point. Based on the

neural theory of language, Lakoff (2009: 116) argues: “Say things not once, but

over and over. Brains change when ideas are repeatedly activated”. Even without

taking the neural theory of language into consideration, this high frequency in the

corpus shows the salience of the issue in the debates. In contrast to human

emotions (e.g. Kövecses, 2003), there are few attempts to find the source domains

employed to metaphorically conceptualize the target domain CONTROL. Yet, the

corpus strongly suggests that CONTROL is the issue at the heart of the discussion

about Great Britain leaving the European Union. In her closing statement for the

“ITV Referendum Debate”, Gisella Stuart emphasizes the importance of taking

back control above all else:

(47) “This is our last chance to take back control. […] We don’t have to

choose between trade and democracy. Countries across the world trade

with Europe without giving away permanent control. A vote to stay is

dangerous. It means handing over more and more power to unelected

elites and bureaucrats every year. We will be trapped in a system

where we will be outvoted by countries which have the euro as their

currency. We will not be able to control our borders and have a say in

who has the right to live and work here. […] That’s why I’m saying to

you: on 23 June vote Leave and take back control”. (Gisella Stuart on

the “ITV Referendum Debate”, 01:42:49-01:43:58)

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From this text sample alone, a number of metaphors used to conceptualize the

target domain CONTROL can be enumerated. First of all, the slogan “Take back

control” in itself describes CONTROL as a physical object. Charteris-Black (2014:

202) explains that one of the functions of metaphor in political discourse is

heuristic, that is, it simplifies abstract, complex and controversial issues in order

to make them generally intelligibly to the audience. Image-based metaphors are

particularly suitable to fulfil this function. Political, economic and social control

at such a large, European-wide level is, indeed, a topic that is difficult to grasp for

voters who are not experts in this field. Moreover, the short slogan “Take back

control” does not even specify which precise issues the Leave campaign wants to

regain control of, and is therefore an inherently fuzzy, ambivalent expression to

use. For this reason, conceptualizing CONTROL as a physical object and evoking

an image where the personified nation state takes back a lawful possession is a

useful rhetorical device. While the ontological metaphor CONTROL IS A PHYSICAL

OBJECT does not structure the target domain by highlighting some of its specific

features, it implies that CONTROL is concrete enough to be grasped physically.

This understanding of CONTROL is concise enough for a short, catchy slogan. Mio

(1997: 103) elucidates: “Because of information-processing demands, people

cannot pay attention to all aspects of political evidence. Therefore, something is

needed to simplify decision-making, and metaphor and other shortcut devices

(e.g. cognitive heuristics) address this need”.

This ontological metaphor also gives rise to a multitude of verbs and verb

phrases that either explicitly mention “hands” or refer to actions normally

performed with hands in the corpus in order to describe the process of regaining

control after Great Britain has made the decision to leave the European Union.

Describing the large sums of money that Great Britain has to pay to the European

Union, Michael Gove claims that precise numbers are not the most important

aspects:

(48) “That money is controlled by the European Union and if we vote to

leave, we can take back control of that money and we’re no longer in

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the hands of people who may not always have our best interests at

heart.” (Michael Gove on Sky News, 00:30:30 – 00:30:39)

Similarly, he argues that, “at the moment, control of our immigration policy is not

in the hands of the British people” (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:33:49-

00:33:53) and that the British people have their destiny “in their hands” in the

upcoming referendum (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:46:47-00:46:53).

Conversely, further integration into the European Union, involves “further

transfers of power away from this country”, as Boris Johnson argues (“ITV

Referendum Debate”, 01:28:48-01:28:53). Another example are EU regulations

which are described as being “imposed” on Britain (Michael Gove on “EU: In or

Out?”, 00:35:33-00:35:40). This verb also suggests a downwards motion from the

sovereign EU to an obedient country, especially when the etymological roots are

taken into consideration.

These metaphorical expressions provide somewhat more structure than the

slogan “Take back control”. If, as the expressions entail, CONTROL is a physical

object small enough in size to be dealt with by human hands, the abstract target

domain is also simplified in its complexity.

The orientational metaphor that is best-known to form a mental picture for

the concept CONTROL is CONTROL IS UP, which is also featured in the Master

Metaphor List (Lakoff et al., 1991: 67). As can be gained from the example

below, this kind of metaphor implies a hierarchy between the European Union and

Great Britain rather than an alliance:

(49) “The only way that you can maintain support for migration and its

benefits is if people feel that this country controls the numbers and

controls who comes here at the moment. Under European Union Law

there are criminals here that we can’t deport. There are terrorists here

[…] that we can’t prevent from coming in”. (Michael Gove on the

“BBC Question Time Special”, 00:32:49-00:33:11)

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Arguing for controlled immigration outside the European Union, Michael Gove

uses the phrase “under the European Union Law” and suggests that power

relations between the two institutions are measured by verticality. The entity

which is in the higher position is mapped onto the more powerful entity, while the

entity which is in the lower position is mapped onto the weaker entity, which is, in

this case, Great Britain. Metaphorical expressions of this sort give rise to

completely different entailments than the FAMILY metaphor where all members

are seen to meet at eye level. Grady mentions (1997) this metaphor under the

alternative name BEING IN CONTROL IS BEING ABOVE in regard to the

relationships between caregivers and children. This general metaphor in the

corpus is rooted in physical experience. Bodily size positively correlates with the

control one holds over others. This early childhood experience carries over to a

much larger experience of power relations between a country and a multi-country

organization in the Brexit debate.

Politicians of the Leave campaign envision a future in which Great Britain will

regain its superior position and will, once more, be on top of the situation:

(50) “The only way we will ever get that back under control is if we

vote Leave on Thursday.” (Andrea Leadsom on the “BBC Great

Debate”, 01:04:49-01:50:05)

There is an interplay between the desire for this superior position and

immigration, which is represented as uncontrollable inrush. However, the

metaphors used to describe this political issue have been discussed separately in

the chapter on the target domain IMMIGRATION.

Last but not least, subtypes of the event structure metaphor were used to

envision Great Britain’s lack of control as a member of the European Union. Both

Europe and Great Britain are seen as travelling on a path towards the future and

their relationship is conceptualized as a vehicle. Control over this vehicle is not

shared but remains in the hands of only one party. The vehicle of choice in the

following utterance by Boris Johnson is a car:

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(51) “They [the Remain side] say that we have absolutely no choice […]

but to stay locked in the back of the EU car driven in the wrong

direction going to a destination we do not want to go”. (Boris Johnson

on the “ITV Referendum Debate”, 1:45:24-1:45:35)

The PATH metaphor is a subtype of the larger conceptual metaphor POLITICAL

ACTION AS SPATIAL MOVEMENT and has its roots in the integration process of the

European Union, which some member states were more committed to than others.

This resulted in the term “multispeed Europe” or “Europe of two speeds” in the

media and political speeches, where Great Britain is seen as slow or even outside

the common European path (Musolff, 2004: 59). It is worth noticing that Britain is

still an active party in determining their future actions within this media discourse.

While Germany accepted the concept of the multispeed Europe as an already

practiced policy, Great Britain criticized Europe as travelling too fast or even

heading towards disaster.

Crucially, the PATH metaphors found in this corpus do not describe a

shared European destination that Great Britain is travelling to as well. Instead, the

instances remain focused on the individual country. In addition, the metaphorical

image evoked by Boris Johnson in his closing statement on ITV has the audience

envision the (personified) country as entirely powerless in the future course of the

EU. The person locked in the trunk of the car may be aware of the crash their

vehicle is going to suffer, but they cannot save their life because they decided to

get into the car at some point in time. This scenario is indeed perfectly apt to show

how Britain must take charge of the steering wheel, instead of weakly cowering in

the back of a vehicle that is doomed. Boris Johnson has carefully selected a

powerful, expressive metaphor to communicate his message.

The conceptual metaphor THE EUROPEAN UNION IS A SUPPRESSOR can be

regarded as the other side of the same coin. Michael Gove was accused of

spreading lies by a member of the audience, particularly in regard to a canvas on

public buses in Great Britain saying: “We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s

fund our NHS instead. Vote Leave”. This number was highly contested by the

interviewer Feisal Islam on Sky News and was again brought up in the debate

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with the audience. In his response, Michael Gove frames the European Union as

suppressor that has been hindering the British people from realizing their full

potential:

(52) “[…] on our side, the Leave campaign, what we believe in is

unlocking the potential of the British people and I think, John, that

there are all sorts of reasons to believe that our country, the fifth largest

economy in the world with the most impressive arm forces, with the

best publicly funded health service, we have so much to offer. That is

project hope”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:28:09-00:28:32)

In this example, Great Britain is depicted as caged by an organization that holds

the power over it and does not allow it to realize its full potential. The metaphor

entails that the influence of the European Union is entirely negative. Regulations

and constrictions are highlighted while economic and social partnership and

benefits are hidden.

In the following example, a member of the audience also made use of the

SUPPRESSOR metaphor. The European Union does not only constrain, but even

“suffocate” the British people in her words. Again, the verb “impose” signifies a

downward motion from the superior organization that acts from above.

(53) “I run a small business, employing ten local staff, and have been

stifled by the raft of EU legislations that’s been imposed on me.”

(member of the audience on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:08:31-

00:08:39)

Similarly, Petrica (2011) found that the European Union is characterized as a

spanker or sodomizer in Malta. While the economic status of Malta is much

weaker than Great Britain’s, the two countries have their insularity in common. In

addition, neither of the countries is a founding member of the EU and they are,

therefore, both seen as having less control in the organization.

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While most conceptual metaphors used to characterise the European Union

by the Leave campaign are serious in nature, there are a few instances of

humorous metaphor use in the corpus. As Charteris-Black notes (2009: 106-107),

humour is an important element in rhetoric. Laughter is a shared social experience

that encourages the audience to see the speaker in a positive light. Humour works

particularly well when speakers have to deal with an inhomogeneous audience, as

is the case on the “BBC Great Debate” where half the audience supported the

Leave campaign and the other half the Remain campaign. Humour “can both

strengthen the support of followers and undermine the opposition of opponents by

uniting them through an empathic response” (Charteris-Black, 2009: 106). In the

following example, Andrea Leadsom reduces the tasks of the European Union to a

grotesquely small level and earns laughter from her audience.

(54) “Most economies can agree free trade deals within a year or two.

The European Union is taking ten years or never at all. Why? Because

28 member states cannot even organize a take-away-curry, let alone

what they’re going to do on free trade with the rest of the world”.

(Andrea Leadsom on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:30:42-00:31:03)

The next instance of metaphorical use, does not share the irony with Andrea

Leadsom’s statement, but has the same entailments. The European Union is

incapable of resolving issues that much smaller organizations can easily deal with.

In both cases, its deficiency is caused by its size: 28 member states are unable to

order their meal. In this instance, the European Union is explicitly named a “big

unwieldy organization” by Michael Gove:

(55) “How could Iceland, how could Switzerland get trade deals with

China when the European Union can’t? Because the European Union is

a big bureaucratic, unwieldy organization that cannot forge new trade

deals individual countries can”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”,

00:21:21-00:21:39)

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Since the European Union is incapable of resolving tasks that individual countries

can resolve, Great Britain is better off with without it. The metaphorical

expressions analysed here, work in concert with the CONTROL metaphor discussed

earlier. While being suppressed by a larger organization is in itself an unwanted

situation, the motivation to “take back control”, as the Leave campaign stressed, is

strengthened by the incapability of the European Union that has been asserted in

the analysed statements.

3.7. The European Union as Destructive Force

The most negative conceptual metaphor the Leave campaign made use of during

the Brexit debates was that of the EUROPEAN UNION AS A DESTRUCTIVE FORCE.

In the following examples “destruction” and its consequences are explicitly

mentioned by the politicians. In addition, Great Britain is constructed as a body

politic that physically suffers from this treatment:

(56) “I'm just puzzled why you want to be allies with people in a union

and institution that wishes to and has been prepared to inflict such

pain”. (“Hilary Benn and Andrew Neill Interview”, 00:03:27-

00:03:34)

A specific subcase of the DESTRUCTIVE FORCE metaphor found in the corpus is

the EUROPEAN UNION AS A JOB DESTROYING MACHINE or ENGINE. This

expression was used six times by politicians of the Leave campaign, which is a

fairly high frequency considering the limited scope of the corpus. The metaphor

highlights certain aspects of a large organization that functions like an apparatus,

but hides other aspects. The characterization of the EU as a mere machine implies

that its workings proceed in an inhumane and unfeeling way. Since machines do

not care about human well-being, negotiation with the European machine is futile.

The machine-like European Union is juxtaposed with the vulnerable human body

of Great Britain. Michael Gove makes use of this metaphor in the following

examples:

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(57) “I think that the truth about the European Union is that it is a job

destroying machine”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:13:58-

00:14:00)

Michael Gove blames the youth unemployment in Southern European countries

on their membership in the European Union and the single currency. Only a few

moments later he repeats, addressing the interviewer:

(58) “Do not belittle the hardship that has been caused by the job

destroying machine that is the European Union. […] Also, look at the

facts of unemployment in Southern Europe: youth unemployment in

Greece is nearly 50%, in Spain it is 40%. Now these are facts, and

these facts are also a story of human misery. […] Those people in

Greece and Spain who are suffering so much as a result of the

European Union are coming here”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or

Out?”, 00:15:17-00:15:48)

When a young man in the audience asked a question on employment, Michael

Gove also pointed out that the problem has largely been caused by migrants from

Southern European countries such as Greece, Portugal and Spain and proceeds to

call the European Union “a job destroying machine“ and “a tragedy” for Great

Britain (Michael Gove on the “BBC Question Time Special”, 00:21:40-00:21:56).

Michael Gove is not the only politician in the Leave campaign who characterizes

the European Union as “a job destroying machine”. Asked by Andrew Neill how

he could claim that migrants were taking away British jobs when employment

rates were in truth at a record level, Nigel Farage answered:

(59) “It’s actually destroying the Baltic States. I mean, you take

something like Lithuania who’ve lost one third of their population

since they joined the European Union, so that’s not good for them”.

(“Nigel Farage and Andrew Neill Interview”, 00:09:20-00:09:30)

Later in the month, Boris Johnson repeated this metaphor in the “BBC Great

Debate” twice, using Southern European countries as deterring example:

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(60) “The European Union, I’m afraid, is a job destroying engine. You

can see it across Europe and you can see it, alas, in this country as

well”. (Boris Johnson on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:28:13-00:28:21)

(61) “Remember what John Major said about the single currency: He

said it had all the quaintness and implausibility of a rain dance. Look

where it is now, destroying jobs across the European Union”. (Boris

Johnson on the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:20:14-01:20:27)

Since no evidence of this metaphor was identified in the EUROMETA corpus by

Musolff and his colleagues (2004, 2016), it can be assumed that this is the most

recently developed metaphor in the corpus. Of all the metaphors used to

conceptualize the European Union it is also the most negative. The identification

of a scapegoat in times of political and economic distress has often been offered

as a solution for social problems in history (Charteris-Black, 2009: 100). Political

parties that argue for continued membership in the European Union are more

likely to use metaphors that are common in this organization in general, such as

the FAMILY or HOUSE metaphors (Musolff, 2004). Political parties that want to

leave the European Union, on the other hand, are overall more likely to invent

original metaphors in the debates since none of the conventional metaphors are

appropriate to support their argument (Petrica, 2011: 151).

Some of the DESTRUCTION metaphors also refer explicitly to the body

politic of Great Britain and are, hence, manifested as physical illnesses. Earliest

traces of the NATION STATE AS A BODY can be found in the works of Plato and

Aristotle. Their respective works, Πολιτεία and Τίμαιος, Πολιτικά and De motu

animalium make use of this conceptual metaphor. In Livius’ Ab Urbe condita and

Plutarch’s Vitae parallelae, in the section about Coriolanus, the senate is

characterized as the belly of the body politic. Although it receives all the food and

remains idle, it is unwise for the other body parts, i.e. the plebeians, to revolt

against the belly since they would cut off their only source of nourishment. This

metaphor entails that the revolt against the senate is doomed. The tale of the belly

is included, most famously, in Shakespeare’s tragedy Coriolanus. Throughout

history, the metaphor of the body politic has been drawn on by philosophers and

70

politicians. Musolff (2016) gives an overview of how the metaphor of the body

politic is continued in German and British discourse about EU politics.

In the 12th

century, John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres, ascribed the

duty to remove any “illness and blemishes” to the head, i.e. the prince. He takes a

radical approach to curing illness in the body politic: “Indeed, neither the ears nor

the tongue nor whatever else subsists within the body of the republic is safe if it

revolts against the soul for whose sake the eyes themselves are gouged out” (John

of Salisbury, 1990: 140-141)1. In the following examples, the European Union is

characterized as such a diseased body part which consequently puts the whole

body politic at risk.

Author Tony Parsons, who had previously declared he would support

Nigel Farage’s UKIP party in the upcoming election, answered when asked

whether immigration was part of the reason why he stood on the Leave side of the

argument:

(62) “We love our country. And I have not heard one argument about

how if we’re too timid, if we’re too frightened, too small to leave this

rotting carbuncle of the European Union, how do we accommodate

three million people?” (Tony Parsons on the “BBC Great Debate”,

01:08:18-01:08:39)

Susan Sontag has investigated the polemical use of disease metaphors historically

from early political theorists like Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes to

totalitarian movements, like Hitler’s depiction of the Jews as syphilitic and

cancerous. She condenses her findings: “Disease imagery is used to express

concern for social order, and health is something everyone is presumed to know

about” (1991: 73). In the light of the history of the disease metaphor, which Tony

Parsons employs in this example, his judgement of the European Union seems

particularly harsh:

1 He bases his claim on the authority of the New Testament: “If your eye or your foot offend you,

root it out and cast it away from you” (Mt. 18.9).

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(63) “I honestly believe that we need to set ourselves free from this

rotten, corrupt bureaucratic institution (…)”. (Tony Parsons on the

“BBC Great Debate”, 01:37:05-01:37:18)

(64) “Of course we’ll still be in all the international bodies. We’ll be

part of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the UN

Security Council, all these things, but what we will not be part of is a

sclerotic creature that had a noble idea in the 1950s that demands

supremacy of its laws”. (Gisela Stuart on the “ITV Referendum

Debate”, 01:18:52-01:19:09)

Tony Parsons argues that the European Union is decaying like a live organism. Its

sickness spoils the otherwise healthy body politic of Great Britain. In Gisela

Stuart’s words, the body politic of Great Britain is still agile while the European

Union has become immobile because it suffers from sclerosis. The frame that both

these metaphorical expressions evoke sees the country as merely removing the

parts of its body that harm the rest with its sickness. In contrast to the CONTROL

metaphors, Great Britain does not have to exert much effort to break free from a

sick organization that is doomed anyway.

In a single instance in the corpus, David Cameron demonstrates that the

same metaphor, THE NATION STATE AS A BODY, can also be used for the purposes

of the Remain campaign. He characterizes Brexit as a “self-inflicted wound” for

the country:

(65) “If we were to get out of the single market, we’d see fewer jobs in

the car industry, we'd see less investment in our country. That would

be a self-inflicted wound for Britain”. (David Cameron on “EU: In or

Out?”, 00:08:45-00:08:53)

In this example, the body politic is sickened by the opposite action, namely

removing, that is leaving, the European Union. This shows that one and the same

conceptual metaphor can be used for a variety of purposes.

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3.8. Metonymies

Scholars disagree on whether metonymy can be treated as a subtype of metaphor

(Genette, 1980; Levin, 1977; Lodge, 1977; Searle, 1979) or is governed by

independent principles (Jakobson, 1971; Bredin, 1984). More recently, Barcelona

(2003b) has proposed that metaphors are typically based on one or more

metonymic mappings. What puts metonymy in the close vicinity of metaphor,

however, is its function as a general cognitive principle, which is why it has been

included in this thesis. As Gibbs argues (1999: 62), “our ability to draw

metonymic inferences, where we infer wholes from parts or parts from wholes, is

one of the special characteristics of the poetics of mind”.

Instances of an idealized cognitive principle (ICP), according to Lakoff

and Johnson (1980: 35-41), are governed by a general principle such as PLACE

FOR INSTITUTION. This ICP accounts for the most frequently used metonymy in

the corpus: BRUSSELS FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION. Out of the 37 instances where

Brussels was mentioned in the corpus, 31 were judged to be metonymic in use.

This means that a larger concept than just the geographic centre of administration

for the European Union was referred to, like in the following examples:

(66) “They say we have no choice but to bow down to Brussels”. (Boris

Johnson on the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:42:13-01:42:23)

(67) “Why has this government and the previous government let

Brussels interfere so much that we’re now at the point of voting to stay

in or out of Europe?” (member of the audience on the “BBC Question

Time Special with David Cameron”, 00:25:58-00:26:08)

(68) “It’s curious to hear this from Nicola Sturgeon because she’s

obviously more keen to be ruled by Brussels than she is to be by

Westminster politicians”. (Boris Johnson on the “ITV Referendum

Debate”, 01:20:15-01:20:22)

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Here, a place is drawn as a domineering person and those politicians obeying its

rules and legislations as disloyal to Britain. Like Warren argues (2004: 112), in

metonymy “the speaker is focusing more on an attribute of an entity than the

entity itself”. Metonymy can thus be seen as a focusing device in rhetoric by

highlighting formal, functional and ontological characteristics. In addition, the

PART-WHOLE grasping concepts also facilitate the comprehension of complex

concepts (Cislaru, 2007: 108). Centres of power are often metonymized. Thus, we

can talk about “Washington” or “the White House” to refer to the administration

of the US as a whole. In the corpus at hand, “Downing Street” was also used

metonymically to refer to the entire British administration, not only the residence

of the current prime minister (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:44:31-

00:44:35). The BRUSSELS metonymy allows the Leave campaign to reduce the

complexity, size and number of member states considerably to the centre of

administration. The Remain campaign attempted to counter by focusing on the

cooperative aspect of the European Union employing a table metonymy:

(69) “I’m passionate about the fact that we’re sat around the table with

27 other countries, eleven of which a quarter of a century ago were on

the other side of the iron curtain, six of which had nuclear weapons on

their soil pointing right here. Today they’re our friends and our

neighbours”. (Tim Farron on the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:35:55-

01:36:06)

Arguably this metonymy could also be categorized as a metaphor (EUROPEAN

COOPERATION AS A TABLE), but as explained above, there is a continuum rather

than a strict distinction between the two phenomena. If it is assumed that a TABLE

is part of the domain of political cooperation, then the mapping remains within the

same domain and we are talking about a metonymy.

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4. Metaphor in Second Language Learning

4.1. Metaphorical Competence

In the wake of Lakoff and Johnson’s seminal study (1980), many researchers have

argued that activities and tasks that raise students’ awareness of metaphor and

metonymy aid second language learning (e.g. Holme, 2004; Lazar, 1996, 2003;

Littlemore & Low, 2006; Rundell, 2001). As has been established early on in this

thesis, metaphor is a pervasive occurrence in every language due to the way the

human mind and physical brain work. Thus, students of a foreign language

necessarily encounter metaphors when developing any of the four language skills,

speaking, listening, reading and writing, and learning grammar or vocabulary. It

does not come as a surprise, then, that metaphorical language can be a major

challenge to them. In a study with international students whose first language was

not English, Littlemore, Chen, Koester and Barnden (2011) determined that 42%

of the words and phrases these students found difficult to understand were used

metaphorically. This finding takes on even greater significance when we take into

consideration that metaphorical language is commonly used to convey knowledge

and new information by lecturers (Low, Littlemore & Koester, 2008). In another

study, 90% of the times oversea students were unable to comprehend the meaning

of the university lecturer the confusion was caused by misinterpretation of

metaphorical language (Littlemore, 2001b). This often meant that the students

could not understand the most significant points of the lectures or the lecturer’s

attitude in regard to the topic. Presumably, younger language students aged ten to

19 will be faced with metaphorical language to a similar extend during their

school years. In addition, they must be prepared for their university education or

encounters with native speakers in their future careers. Understanding and

producing metaphors in appropriate ways is therefore a skill students have to

acquire in the language learning classroom. This is also referred to as metaphoric

competence (Littlemore, 2001a) or, alternatively, as metaphorical competence in

the literature. In this thesis, the latter term will be used following Azuma (2004)

and Danesi (1993).

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Scholars are in agreement about the significance of metaphorical

competence for second language learners. Danesi (1980) claims “the true sign that

the learner has developed communicative proficiency is the ability to metaphorize

in the target language” (1986: 9). Andreou and Galantomos (2008) have designed

a conceptual syllabus to raise metaphorical awareness in students. But overall,

scholars disagree on what exactly constitutes metaphorical competence.

Littlemore (2001a: 461) defines it as consisting of four components: (a) the

originality of metaphor production, (b) the fluency of metaphor interpretation, (c)

the ability to find meaning in metaphor, and (d) the speed in finding meaning in

metaphor. Littlemore and Low (2006: 79) later describe metaphorical competence

as “an individual’s ability to understand and produce metaphors”. Azuma (2004)

follows this broad definition on the whole, but importantly adds a deeper,

cognitive level to it. Not only does metaphorical competence include students’ (a)

ability to recognize metaphorical expressions in reading and listening and (b) to

use them in their speaking and writing of their L2, but also (c) to understand the

underlying concepts behind the metaphorical expressions in both their L1 and

their L2 (2004: 52).

The notion of metaphorical competence is also closely connected to the

notion of conceptual fluency. Conceptual fluency is a somewhat broader term than

metaphorical competence and refers to the ability to make use of the conceptual-

semantic system of a language in order to systematically produce all kinds of

figurative speech, including metaphor (Danesi 2016: 146). Conceptual fluency

was defined as an essential feature of native-speaker competence by Danesi

(1993). So-called conceptual errors are often the result of students choosing the

wrong source domain in forming a metaphor (Danesi, 2008). Participants in

Danesi’s study (2008) who had been educated to acquire the conceptual system of

the target language were able to use figurative language more frequently and

correctly. Without the explicit teaching of metaphors and their underlying

concepts, he argues, students either avoid figurative language or fail to convey

their ideas due to L1 interference. His findings also suggest that metaphorical

competence is, indeed, teachable although more research is needed to determine

this issue.

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4.1.1. Lesson Plan

The following lesson plan is designed for a 7th

grade class of around 25 students.

Therefore, language learners can be expected to be on a B1+ language level,

progressing towards a B2 level for their final exams. Accordingly, the goal for

students is to passively understand “extended speech and lectures and follow even

complex lines of argument provided the topic is reasonably familiar”, according to

the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages or CEFR

(Council of Europe, 2011: 27). In this lesson plan, students will be confronted

with excerpts from newspaper articles, which they will be required to understand

in full at the B2 level (ibid.: 27). Although the CEFR does not specifically

mention control of metaphors, the types of spoken and written discourse pointed

out in the “can do” descriptors presuppose an understanding of metaphorical

language as has been established above. Moreover, the CEFR mentions metaphor

in connection with lexical competence, i.e. “knowledge of, and ability to use, the

vocabulary of a language” (ibid.: 110). Raising students’ metaphorical awareness

will therefore impact both vocabulary range and vocabulary control (ibid.: 112).

The aim of this lesson is to raise students’ awareness on the use of

metaphorical phrases in contexts where it might not be expected in the first place.

This is why the lesson starts off with collecting students’ preliminary knowledge

on what metaphors are and where they occur and, thus, activate top-down

processing. Most likely, students will have encountered metaphors in a poetic

context, particularly in their first language lessons. Maybe, they can come up with

an example of metaphors they have encountered in a literature class. In addition,

metaphor should be delineated from other rhetorical devices that it might be

confused with, such as simile, hyperbole, metonymy etc.

Due to the pervasiveness of metaphor, a variety of communicative

contexts could be chosen to train metaphorical competence. But since the first two

sections of the thesis focused on a political context, this theme will be carried on

into the lesson plan.

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Next, students learn to differentiate between literal and metaphorical

language use by means of a variety of sentences taken from the British National

Corpus which show the metaphorical and literal use of the verb “to die”. Besides

examples that are clearly instance of either figurative or literal language use, there

are some more difficult examples worth discussing, such as “the giggles died

down”.

In the main activity, students receive a worksheet with a variety of

headlines and excerpts from different newspaper articles on immigration. They are

asked to highlight any metaphorically used words in groups of threes or fours.

Once they are finished, the words are collected and categorized on the blackboard.

Three source domains are available to them: WATER, NATURAL DISASTER, and

OTHER. The overlaps in the graphical organizer below show students that some

metaphorical expressions can be part of more than one source domain. Any

questions on whether words are actually used metaphorically and how to group

them will be discussed in plenum. Students will also be asked whether the same

metaphors are used in their mother tongue or whether they can think of other

metaphors in order to train intercultural competence. This discussion will

obviously be enriched by students whose first language is not German or not

exclusively German. Last but not least, the students’ preliminary notions of

metaphor from the beginning of the class will be revisited and possibly adapted.

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Table 3: Lesson Plan to train metaphorical competence

Grade: 7th

grade

Number of students: about 25

Language level: B1+

Overall aim: develop metaphorical competence

Time: 50 min

Time Activity Aims Materials needed

5 min Students are introduced to the topic of this lesson

and asked what they know about metaphors:

-What is a metaphor?

-Where do you find metaphors?

-Can you think of an example?

Their answers are collected on the blackboard and

revisited at the end of the lesson.

-Activate knowledge students

already have on the subject.

-Activate top-down processing.

blackboard

5 min Students receive a worksheet on metaphorical and

literal use of the verb “die” and apply the

knowledge of metaphors they have just collected.

-Develop students’ ability to

recognize metaphorical

expressions in their reading and

Worksheet (4.1.2.):

Differentiate between

metaphorical and literal use

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Possible questions that arise are discussed in

plenum.

writing.

-Clarify any questions on what

constitutes a metaphor.

15 min Students receive the worksheet with headlines and

extracts from different newspaper articles.

Working in pairs of three or four people, they

highlight any metaphorical expressions on the

sheet. They know that they will have to share their

results with the rest of the class in the next activity.

-Further develop students’

ability to recognize

metaphorical expressions.

-Show that metaphors do not

only occur in poetic contexts.

Worksheet (4.1.3.): Newspaper

headlines and extracts

15 min Students are asked to categorize the metaphorically

used words they identified according to the three

source domains on the blackboard: WATER,

NATURAL DISASTER, and OTHER. Again, questions

as to categorization will be discussed.

-Learn to categorize metaphors

according to their source

domains.

-Develop some degree of

fluency in metaphor

interpretation.

Graphical Organizer (4.1.4.)

on the blackboard

5 min Students are asked to compare the metaphors they

identified with their expectations and their L1:

-Would you have expected these metaphors to play

a role in discourse about migration?

-Understand the underlying

concepts of metaphors both in

their L1 and in their L2.

- Develop intercultural

none

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-What impact do these metaphors have on the

issue?

-Can you think of any other metaphors used in

reference to migration?

-Does German make use of the same metaphors or

others?

competence.

-Encourage critical thinking.

5min The findings from this lesson are contrasted with

the initial assumptions students had on metaphor.

The aim is to show that metaphors are much more

frequent in many contexts than often assumed.

Round-off none

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4.1.2. Differentiating between Literal and Metaphorical Use

The literal meaning of the verb die is “to cease to live”, but it can also be used

in a metaphorical or non-literal way. In the following sentences die is used in

both sentences. Try to select and mark the sentences where die is not used

literally.

Many of them may be subject of discussion so think about reasons why a

particular usage is metaphorical or not.

(1) Many people are dying with great indignity and with great suffering,' said

John Oliver, general secretary of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society.

(2) This was a love worth dying for, at last.

(3) I'm dying for some punch. My throat's like sandpaper,' Maggie said.

(4) Most of these errors would have been fatal to the survival of the organism

or its ability to reproduce. Such errors would not be passed on to future

generations but would die out.

(5) Given a meatless diet [a cat] will rapidly become ill and will

then die a painful death. A cat is a carnivore and if it is to be kept as a pet

it must be given a carnivorous diet.

(6) Today, I would die for one of Mrs. Poulard's omelettes.

(7) Mrs. Fry shook [their hands] gingerly and said,' You must be dying for

something to eat, both of you. We usually eat at seven, but we waited for

you - I've got a casserole in the oven.'

(8) Tell Elizabeth? I would die of shame!

(9) It's what the actors do best. They have to exploit whatever talent is given

to them, and their talent is dying. They can die heroically, comically,

ironically, slowly, suddenly, disgustingly, charmingly, or from a great

height.

(10) The giggles die down as she adds: I'm already depressed about it.

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4.1.3. Newspaper Articles

“you have got a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life, wanting to come to Britain because Britain has got jobs, it’s got a growing economy, it’s an incredible place to live”. (The Guardian News, July 30, 2015)

“BRITAIN was warned last night it

faces a massive benefits bill to pay

for the looming influx of immigrants,

including gypsies, from eastern

Europe”. (The Express , February 9,

2004)

Migrants flood

trains in

desperate bid to

leave Italy

As Italy struggles

to cope with the

Mediterranean

migration crisis, its

Alpine region of

South Tyrol is

facing an

increasing stream

of migrants who try

How Climate Change is

Behind the Surge of

Migrants to Europe

“Even as Europe wrestles

over how to absorb the

migrant tide, experts warn

that the flood is likely to get

worse as climate change

becomes a driving factor”

(Times, September 7, 2015)

UN expects thousands of refugees to flood Europe

Tens of thousands of new refugees will swarm into Europe in the coming days, the UN warned Tuesday — as those who survived the harrowing trip across the Mediterranean in smugglers’ rickety boats shared horror stories of their desperate voyages. (New York Post, September 9, 2015)

Financially

Strapped Greece

Struggles With Flood

of Refugees (Wall Street

Journal, August 30, 2015)

Forget the Greek

crisis or Britain's

referendum, this

tidal wave of

migrants could be

the biggest threat

to Europe since the

war (Daily Mail, June

26, 2015)

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WATER

4.1.4. Graphical Organizer

NATURAL DISASTER

OTHER METAPHORS

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influx, absorb,

WATER tidal wave

flood tide,

stream surge

4.1.5. Possible Solution

wrestle

looming

NATURAL DISASTER

threat to face

struggle

OTHER METAPHORS

swarm (n.)

swarm (v.)

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4.2. Organizing Lexis

One particularly well-researched area of metaphor application in the classroom is

vocabulary learning. One of the strategies to successfully memorize vocabulary is

to organize it somehow, rather than learning it in a random list (Sökmen, 1997).

The small sets of related words that students have already acquired can later be

used as the foundation for further acquisition of words since they have a

framework to connect them to. In addition to more traditional organizing

principles such as “topic”, “situation” and “narration”, Lewis (1997: 67-85) also

suggests grouping lexis according to underlying conceptual metaphors.

Contrary to traditional views, research in cognitive linguistics since the

1980s suggests that idiomatic language does not simply consist of dead metaphors

and is, in fact, compositional. This entails that learners of a language parse these

lexical items into their individual constituents which they can glean meaning from

(Gibbs, 1990; Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990; Crutchley, 2007). Speakers thus process

the idiomatic expression “to let off steam”, for instance, through decomposition

and connect the verb and the object to their literal references, “release” and

“anger”, respectively (Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990).

Phrasal verbs are one instance of metaphorically motivated lexis that can

be decomposed into orientational metaphors and so-called light verbs

(Stefanowitch & Gries, 2005). The orientational metaphor COMPLETION IS UP in

combination with a variety of verbs gives rise to the linguistic expressions “give

up”, “wind up”, “eat up” and others. Their stress is on the adverbial part which

provides a rich mental imagery in contrast to the verb that conveys little schematic

content (Stefanowitch & Gries, 2005). According to the cognitive approach to

teaching and learning phrasal verbs, students whose awareness for underlying

orientational metaphors is raised are able to create mental generalizations in their

lexicon. This raised metaphorical awareness is a much more efficient learning

strategy than mere memorization or rote learning.

The value of organizing phrasal verbs through orientational metaphors in

the EFL classroom was tested by Kövecses and Szabó (1996) in an experiment

that focused on phrasal verbs with “up” and “down”. The first language of all

students in the study was Hungarian. The first group of students was instructed to

86

study the phrasal verbs with the aid of their underlying conceptual metaphors

(such as MORE IS UP and HAPPY IS UP). The second group of students was given

the translation of the phrasal verbs in their L1 instead. The test immediately

following the study period showed that the first group outperformed the latter by

almost 9%. Boers (2000) also compared the performance of two groups of

students who had been asked to study 26 phrasal verbs either via the variety of

conceptual metaphors they expressed or a number of synonyms. Again, the group

of students which had used conceptual metaphors as organizing principle

significantly outperformed the other group in the immediate post-test. In addition

to providing students with a useful organizing principle, the outcome of both

studies is likely to be the result of dual coding (Pavio, 1986). The conceptual

metaphors emphasize the figurative nature of the phrasal verbs and enable

students to connect the verbal input with a visual input. This association facilitates

the recollection of the lexemes by offering students “an additional access point”

through the image (Boers & Lindstromberg, 2009: 79).

These findings can be implemented in the EFL classroom by starting with

a manageable number of phrasal verbs and subsuming them under a small number

of conceptual metaphors. Students can gradually extend this list by adding new

lexical items under the appropriate heading. The cognitive effort involved when

students themselves have to group the phrasal verbs will support memorization

(Schmitt, 2008). However, findings by Condon (2008) suggest that explicit

reference to the underlying conceptual metaphors is required since students do not

automatically expand on the metaphorical bases that their teachers have

established. This implies that teachers have to continuously remind students to

connect the lexical target items to the underlying metaphors and cannot rely on

students to pick up the strategy by default. A helpful reference book for teachers

to create a list of phrasal verbs is Macmillan’s Phrasal Verbs Plus (2005) which

takes conceptual metaphor theory into consideration and argues that

understanding the metaphor behind phrasal verbs can facilitate students’

vocabulary comprehension and retention. The following list is modelled after

Boers and Lindstromberg (2009: 98), but includes only phrasal verbs taken from

the “BBC Great Debate” on the Brexit referendum:

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Studies that deal with metaphorical expressions instead of phrasal verbs, however,

also indicate that conceptual metaphors are not merely an organizing principle as

good as any other. Instead, they surpass other options. Students in a study (Boers,

2000) were given a list of 18 well-known metaphorical expressions describing

anger, as listed by Kövecses (1990). They were either grouped under their

conceptual metaphors (e.g. ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER or ANGER IS

FIRE) or according to the intensity of the action (e.g. “blow up at someone” vs.

“simmer down”) or character traits described (“a ferocious temper”). Therefore,

both groups of students were presented with an equal measure of structure in their

target lexis. Nevertheless, in the following gap-filling test the group that had been

utilizing the metaphor headings achieved much better results. As Hoang (2014: 4)

elucidates, instruction based on conceptual metaphor theory “relies on the

interactive properties between the source and target domains of metaphors and

gives students a rationale to ponder upon why the phrases mean what they mean,

which likely explains the learning gain”. Designing pragmatic sets of lexical items

on the other hand (such as sets of near synonyms or antonyms) has been found to

be an unhelpful vocabulary learning strategy (Nation, 2000).

Phrasal Verbs grouped according to metaphor themes:

MORE IS UP; LESS IS DOWN

cut down expenses; hold down wages; drive down wages; bring down

migration; prices will go up; speed up accession;

ACTIVE IS UP; INACTIVE IS DOWN

put up the barriers to migrants; to be up for; back up a case; stand up for

democracy;

GOOD IS UP; BAD IS DOWN

talk someone down; run down our city;

VISIBILE IS OUT

to point out; to put out a list;

PROBLEMS ARE PHYSICAL OBJECTS

walk away from; kick somebody out; get out of something; opt out of

something;

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Early research on the influence of metaphor on learning suggests that it

can serve as a mnemonic device, evoking richer images than literal language and

facilitating the recall of information. In addition, metaphor accesses suitable

conceptual frameworks which allow new knowledge to be integrated into existing

mental schemas in the mind (Gibbs 1994: 129-134).

In the following section, two exercises that focus on organizing lexis

according to conceptual metaphors will be presented. No lesson plan was created

because these kinds of exercises should be incorporated continuously into

vocabulary teaching. In addition, an evaluation sheet that students can use to

reflect on the method and decide whether and how to use the exercises in their

future language learning process was added. Teaching students this kind of

vocabulary learning strategy is in line with the Austrian Curriculum for foreign

languages (2004: 1), which postulates that school should prepare students for life-

long, autonomous learning: “Der Fremdsprachenunterricht hat die Aufgabe, den

Schülerinnen und Schülern ein breites Spektrum an Sprachlernstrategien für den

weiteren selbstständigen Spracherwerb im Sinne des lebensbegleitenden

autonomen Sprachenlernens zu erschließen. Möglichkeiten zur Selbstevaluation

sind dabei besonders zu berücksichtigen”. The CEFR (Council of Europe, 2011:

106-107), too, counts such study skills as an essential component of foreign

language competence.

4.2.1. Idioms

The following exercise adopted from Boers and Lindstromberg (2008) organizes

idioms according to the source domain they arise from. As Boers and Stengers

determined in a corpus-based study (2008: 376), some of the most frequently used

source domains include (a) vehicles & travelling, (b) war & aggression, and (c)

games & sports, all of which will be used in the following exercise. Other source

domains that could be selected include fauna & flora, food & cooking, clothes &

adornment etc., which are also found to be productive in the English language.

Next, teachers have to decide how many idioms students can realistically

learn in the course of one lesson. Rob Waring suggests on his website that

89

efficient learning strategies can enable students to learn as many as 30 to 40 words

per hour. More moderately, O’Dell and McCarthy (1997; 2001) suggest that 15 to

18 words per lesson should be a more realistic target. Depending on the

consequent amount of practice, ten to twelve of these words will be retained in the

students’ productive vocabulary. For this reason, 15 idioms were chosen for this

exercise. Of course, the exercise could be expanded at a later point in time by

adding new idioms that arise from the same source domains to the organizer, once

students have established a solid basis.

Besides the idiom, an explanation taken from the Oxford Dictionary of

English Idioms (Ayto, 2009) and an example sentence, the cards for the teacher

also include the etymology of the phrase if a relevant one exists. The origin of

more transparent idioms, such as “at the crossroads”, is not included in the cards.

Students will receive the same cards without the etymology in the last row. Here,

the idioms are categorized according to the source domains, but obviously

students will be given a jumbled pack of cards.

a) Vehicles & Travelling

show someone the ropes be thoroughly acquainted with the way

something is done

“He has been working in this company for 60 years and knows the ropes to

everything.”

In its literal sense, this expression goes back to the days of sailing ships, when

skill handling ropes was essential for any sailor. The idiom is found in various

forms, from the mid-19th

century onwards, e.g. “learn” or “understand the ropes”

and “show” or “teach someone the ropes”.

all hands on deck every member of a team

“It was all hands on deck to finish the project on time.”

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An order to every member of a ship's crew to report to the deck immediately,

usually in an emergency. “All hands on deck” or “all hands to the pumps”, in

addition to their literal shipboard senses, are also used to indicate that all members

of a team are required to be involved.

in a rut

Following a fixed (especially tedious or

dreary) pattern of behaviour that is

difficult to change

“After ten years in the same job, she said she felt like being stuck in a rut.”

The “rut”, in this expression, is the deep groove worn by a wheel travelling many

times along the same track.

pick up steam Gradually grow in momentum, power

and influence

“The election campaign is picking up steam”.

at the crossroads

At a critical point when decisions

with far reaching consequences must

be made.

“After finishing her degree she was standing at the crossroads, wondering which

way to turn”.

Used since 1795 in figurative sense of "a turning point, a moment of decision

91

(a) War & Aggression

hit the ground running

Start something and proceed at a fast

pace with enthusiasm

“I like to prepare my to-do-list the night before so that I can hit the ground

running in the morning”.

This late 20th-century expression achieved the status of a cliché in the 1990s. It

seems likely to refer to military personnel disembarking rapidly from a helicopter,

though it cannot be definitely traced back to any 20th

century war. (Oxford

Dictionary of Idioms, 2004: 144)

fight a losing battle/ an

uphill battle

Try hard at something when there is no

chance that you will win/ struggle

against unfavourable circumstances

“She was fighting a losing battle in the argument: He would never change his

mind on the subject”.

“Unless you have a goal your learning will be an uphill struggle.”

with flying colours With distinction

“If he had only studied a little bit, he would have passed his exam with flying

colours”.

Formerly, in military contexts, flying colours meant having the regimental flag

flying as a sign of success or victory; I conquered army usually had to lower (or

strike) its colours. (Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, 2004: 113)

fall into line Conform with others or with accepted

behaviour

“Most countries have signed the treaty, but some are reluctant to fall into line.”

This phrase originally referred to soldiers arranging themselves into military

formation. (Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, 2004: 101)

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be caught in the crossfire

suffer damage or harm inadvertently as

the result of a fight between two other

people or groups

“During a divorce, kids often get caught in the crossfire”.

The literal sense of the phrase, in a military context, is 'be trapped (and possibly

killed) by being between two opposing sides who are shooting at each other.

(Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, 2004: 66)

(b) Games & Sports

jump the gun Act before the proper or the appropriate

time

“Surely it’s jumping the gun to buy the ring before you even asked her to marry

you?”

In athletics, a competitor who jumps the gun sets off before the starting pistol has

been fired. The expression appears in the early 20th century as beat the gun.

hands down (especially of winning) easily and

decisively

“Nigel always won hands down easily in any argument.”

Originally a horse-racing expression, win hands down meant that a jockey was so

certain of victory in the closing stages of a race that he could lower his hands,

thereby relaxing his hold on the reins and ceasing to I urge on his horse.

a race against time a situation in which someone attempts

to do or complete something before a

particular time or before something else

happens

“His parents face a race against time as they try to raise the money necessary for

his treatment”.

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give it your best shot Try your hardest

“If you give it your best shot, you might make it to the finals”.

This expression employs shot in the sense of “attempt,”

a usage dating from the mid-1700s.

get (back) into the swing of

things

Get used to (or return to) being easy

and relaxed about an activity or routine

you are engaged in

“It will probably take her a month working at her new job until she gets into the

full swing of things.”

The expression dates back to the mid-1800s and alludes to the vigour of a

swinging body in tennis.

94

War & Aggression

Vehicles & Travelling

Games & Sports

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4.2.2. Phrasal Verbs

The following exercise is based on Ruzka-Ostyn’s Word Power (2003) in which

she has organized a vast number of phrasal verbs according to the stereotypical

meaning of the preposition, such as IN as “being inside or entering a container”.

She argues that awareness of metaphors allows us to readily understand the many

expressions they’re based on and, hence, encourages students to group phrasal

verbs accordingly in their vocabulary learning (2003: 7). Every exercise is made

more comprehensible with a drawing, which represents the mental image schema

of the spatial relation expressed by the preposition.

Students who complete the following exercise familiarize themselves with

the more concrete meaning of the preposition “in” and then move on to discover

that containers can also be abstract. Situations and circumstances are also

regarded as containers.

IN: Situations and circumstances are viewed as containers

Choose the appropriate phrasal verb from the bank to fit the sentences below.

Adapt the tense and voice as needed.

fall in – swear in – zero in on – trade in – throw in – cram in – step in – give in –

tune in – sign in – join in – listen in –turn in

(1) The president of the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . this week.

(2) The speaker cleverly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .to the growing frustration of the

audience.

(3) Did you know Mary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . in love with John?

(4) If you want to keep up your English , . . . . . . . . . . . . regularly to the BBC.

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(5) Participants are asked to . . . . . . . . . . . when they arrive, so that we know

who is staying here.

(6) The newly arrived children asked the others if they could . . . . . . . . . . .

(7) Our car is so old now, that we’ll have to . . . . . it . . . . . . . to get a new

one.

(8) After hours of begging, their father finally . . . . . . . . . . and promised them

a trip to the amusement park.

(9) We . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . as much sightseeing as possible on our trip to

New York.

(10) I couldn’t find anyone to . . . . . . . . . . . . for me so that I could take a break

from my caregiving duties.

(11) He managed to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a few words before he was interrupted

again.

Glossary: (1) sworn in: promised in an official ceremony to respect the laws of

the country, (2) zeroed in on: focus on, (3) fell in: develop romantic feelings for,

(4) tune in: listen to (5) sign in: make a record of your arrival, (6) join in:

participate in the game, (7) trade in: sell the car as partial payment for a new one,

(8) give in: yield under insistence, (9) cram in: to make a special effort although

there is hardly enough time,(10)step in: find a replacement, (11) throw in: to say a

few words

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4.2.3. Evaluation Sheet

How helpful do I find this method in memorizing vocabulary?

How much time does it take me to use this method in my vocabulary learning?

5 minutes or less

Around 10 minutes

More than 10 minutes

Could I use this method without the help of my teacher?

No. Yes, with some more practice.

Yes, absolutely.

Are there any materials needed for the method (dictionary, textbook, internet etc.)? If yes, which?

Would I like to change or adapt this method somehow? If so, how?

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5. Conclusion

This thesis has analysed the metaphorical expressions used in nine television

debates on the EU referendum in Great Britain on 23 June 2016. After defining

metaphor as a cognitive and linguistic device that shapes the human mind, the

theoretical approach was applied to an authentic set of linguistic data. The results

presented in the second part of the thesis show that the target domain CONTROL

was one of the most significant subjects of the debate. As the Leave campaign’s

slogan “Take back control” already conveys, CONTROL is conceptualized as a

physical object that can easily be transferred from the EU administration to the

British government. In addition, the orientational metaphor CONTROL IS UP was

used to add a positive evaluation to the goal the Leave side set. The

conceptualization of BRITAIN AS A CONTAINER, which is manifested in the

blended word form “Brexit”, suggests that nations are clearly delineated entities

that can easily close themselves off against external threats, such as immigration.

What is more, it conjured up a black and white image of membership, which

renders David Cameron’s argument of Britain having a special status within the

European Union futile. Simultaneously, a negative image of the European Union

is drawn by supporters of the Leave side. Firstly, the European Union is never

understood as a family member in the debates, which would be expected in

discussions about a large, multi-national organization. Secondly, HOUSE

metaphors are used to demonstrate Britain’s missing participation in constructing

common rules. At its most extreme, the discussion depicts the European Union as

a DESTRUCTIVE FORCE that is responsible for large-scale unemployment in

Southern European countries and overwhelming pressure on British resources.

This thesis does not take a therapeutic stance, i.e. it does not argue that

voters must be protected from manipulative language use of politicians. Since

there is empirical proof, however, that metaphor has a much more fundamental

function than stylistic embellishment, the results of this study are assumed to have

impacted and persuaded voters to some extent. Therefore, an awareness of the

metaphors that can influence human thought is crucial for voters and scholars

reviewing the EU referendum alike.

99

In addition to frequency, the thesis also took other factors of metaphorical

strength into account. Metaphorical expressions are particularly strong when they

conjure up vivid mental images. Such expressions were rare but all the more

salient in the corpus. General metaphorical expressions, on the other hand,

provide far less structure and have a far more subtle conceptualizing effect on our

minds. The EU IS A CONTAINER metaphor that gives rise to expressions, such as

“Brexit” and “being inside” or “ being outside the EU”, is difficult to detect in

everyday speech, yet the implications it brings undoubtedly have a strong impact

on the Brexit debate. What is more, these general metaphors occur with a much

higher frequency than strong metaphorical expressions. The CONTAINER metaphor

even preserves a monopoly on how to conceptualize Brexit. No other metaphors

to talk about Britain’s “leaving” the European Union were found in the corpus.

Since this study only worked with a very limited corpus, the findings can

only be seen as indicative of typical language use in the given context. A larger

set of linguistic data would be needed to determine the frequency and the

centrality of the conceptual metaphors in the Brexit debate. In addition, a larger

corpus that extends over a longer period of time could trace the origin of certain

metaphors, describe the different contexts they are used in and attempt to explain

why they become central or stay peripheral in terms of their plausibility and

argumentative force. The central metaphors in the television debates from June

have presumably developed over a longer period of time in the months or even

years preceding the final election. The “amicable divorce from the European

Union” that has been discussed above, for instance, first occurred in the 1990s

(Musolff, 2004: 14). It was not possible to trace this development within the scope

of this thesis. The findings presented in this study could also be compared to the

conceptual metaphors used after the result of the EU referendum has become

known. Moreover, a comparison between the metaphors used to conceptualize the

EU in Great Britain and other countries that are far less likely to leave, such as

France, Germany or Austria, would likely yield interesting results.

Last but not least, the thesis presented the importance of conceptual

metaphor theory for second language learning. While the literature convincingly

argues that the integration of conceptual metaphor in the classroom benefits all

100

four language skills, teaching materials that bridge the gap between theory and

practice are still scarce. Not only is conceptual metaphor not commonly

considered in student’s textbooks specifically designed for the classroom, but

there are also few dedicated monographs or articles that focus on practical issues

and provide materials for teachers. For this reason, the thesis attempted to

translate theoretical proposals into one elaborate lesson plan and a variety of

exercises that can be used continuously throughout the school year. Since it is

impossible to cover the wide range of metaphor application, this thesis focused

specifically on metaphorical competence and vocabulary learning. The first

competence is closely connected to Danesi’s (1993) notion of conceptual fluency

and requires learners to be able to comprehend, actively use and interpret

metaphorical expressions in their first and second language. Since the use of

conceptual metaphor on the issue of immigration has been observed in some detail

in the foregone study, this topic was chosen to train students’ understanding and

awareness of metaphorical expressions and consider their impact. Naturally, any

other topic that is of interest to the students could be prepared for the classroom in

a similar way. Secondly, the vocabulary centred exercises demonstrate how

conceptual metaphor can serve as an organizing tool in expanding lexis. Hereby,

students can acquire strategies for independent and life-long language learning.

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Eidesstattliche Erklärung

Ich erkläre hiermit an Eides statt durch meine eigenhändige Unterschrift, dass ich

die vorliegende Arbeit selbstständig verfasst und keine anderen als die

angegebenen Quellen und Hilfsmittel verwendet habe. Alle Stellen, die wörtlich

oder inhaltlich den angegebenen Quellen entnommen wurden, sind als solche

kenntlich gemacht.

Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde bisher in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form noch nicht

als Magister-/Master-/Diplomarbeit/Dissertation eingereicht.

Innsbruck, Dezember 2017 ___________________________

Carina Rützler